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THE SUPPRESSION 



REFORMATION IN FRANCE: 



AS EXHIBITED 

IN DE RULHIERE'S HISTORICAL ELUCIDATIONS, 

AND VARIOUS OTHER DOCUMENTS. 



COMPILED, TRANSLATED, AND EDITED 

BY DAVID DUNDAS SCOTT. 



NEC TAMEN CONSUMEBATUR. 






PUBLISHED BY R. B. SEELEY ANUW. BURNSIDE : 

A2fD SOLD BY 

L. AND G. SEELEY, FLEET STREET, LONDON ; 

J. JOHNSTONE, AND CO. EDINBURGH ; 

AND W. CURRY, AND CO. DUBLIN. 

MDCCCXL. 






' The firm endurance of suffering by the martyrs of conscience, if it be 
rightly contemplated, is the most consolatory spectacle in the clouded life 
of man : far more ennobling and sublime than the outward victories of 
virtue, which must be partly won by weapons not her own, and. are often 
the lot of her foulest foes. Magnanimity in enduring pain for the sake of 
conscience, is not, indeed, an unerring mark of rectitude ; but it is of all 
other destinies that which most exalts the sect or party whom it visits, 
and bestows on their story an undying command over the hearts of their 
fellow men.'— Sir .James Mackintosh— History of England, vol. II. p. 327. 



PRINTED BY 
L. AND G. 5EELEY, WESTON GREEN. THAMES DITTON. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Were my sole object the correction of certain historical 
errors, I might find ample reasons for this publication. 
Such errors abound with respect to the period before us 
— a period which in its connexion with the Reformation, 
now only begins to be adequately investigated, and this 
from a natural cause. The first century of protestant- 
ism, besides being richer in general interest, presents a 
course of almost uninterrupted progress ; from the 
second wx avert our regard as not only prosaic, but as 
presenting little to flatter our vanity as protestants. In 
the first we see our testimony maintained, heroically and 
successfully, amid martyr fires and massacres ; in the 
second it droops amid obscure intrigues, ill-sorted 
alliances, and a host of corrupting influences. We love 
to survey the torrent rushing, pure and powerful, from 
its mountain source, and dashing forward with a force 
that overleaps every obstacle, but it loses its charms 
when we perceive it creeping through an unsightly 
marsh, where agitation only stirs up mud. 

Yet who shall say that the latter period is not more 
instructive than the former ? Both, indeed, ought to be 
studied. The one abounds w T ith encouragement, the 
other with warning. The one points to the arms we 
most need, the other to the enemies that are most to be 
dreaded. 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

But history, to be instructive, must be true. As 
such only it is a page of God's providence, to be devoutly 
read and studied. Among the errors I trust this 
publication will correct, let me notice, 1st. That the 
papacy was left in a very sluggish condition at the close 
of the Thirty years war in Germany, in 1648, and from 
tha't period has ceased to be dangerous. 2d. That the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the measures of 
which it formed a part, were the personal acts of Louis 
XIV. 3d. That these had all a purely political charac- 
ter. 4th. That Louis, at the time, was old and of an 
enfeebled mind. 5th. That such proceedings could not 
have taken place under a free constitution and limited 
monarchy. 6th. That what was done was effected 
altogether by force. 7th. That it had neither the sanc- 
tion nor applause of the Pope or of papal Europe. 

Now, no one can rise from the perusal of the present 
volume, still less from the additional evidence which 
another may furnish, without being convinced that the 
peace of Westphalia left the papal clergy the same restless, 
sanguine, intriguing and ambitious body as before ; that 
the antiprotestant proceedings of Louis XIV 's reign 
emanated from that body, and were systematically res- 
trained, by the king and Colbert, until the latter' s in- 
fluence declined, and advantage was taken of the king's 
fits of remorse to make him a fanatic, by such instru- 
ments as Father la Chaise and Mme. de Main tenon ; 
that those proceedings had a purely religious origin ; 
that Louis at the time was in the full vigour of his un- 
derstanding, being only forty years old in 1678, when 
he first began to yield to the religious animosities of the 
R. C. clergy ; that as the magistracy, the municipalities, 
the universities, and, in short, the great mass of the 
Roman Catholic population in France, were thoroughly 



INTRODUCTION. V 

imbued with the same animosities, a parliament express- 
ing and giving effect to the wishes of a national majo- 
rity, would have overborne the personal moderation of 
the king at a much earlier period, and hastened instead 
of preventing persecution ; that intrigue, bribery, and 
seduction were employed as well as force, and that the 
Pope and R. C. Europe at least acquiesced in what was 
done. 

That I may not be supposed to impute more igno- 
rance to the public than is justly chargeable, I give 
the following quotation from an able review of Ranke's 
Popes of the 1 6th and 1 7th centuries, which appeared 
a few years ago in the Quarterly Review, and great, 
indeed, must the general misapprehension on the above 
points be, when so well informed and talented a 
writer could compress so much of it within so short a 
compass. 

* The only considerable encroachment on the interests 
of protestantism was the Revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes and the persecution of the protestants. But 
this though its primary motive was the bigotry of a mis- 
tress working on the enfeebled mind of an aged king, 
was after all an act of political despotism rather than of 
genuine religious zeal. It w T as effected altogether by 
force ; the missionaries would have done little without 
the dragoons. It was neither sanctioned nor applauded 
by the general voice of Catholic Europe. Not only was 
the pope in no respect the prime mover in these affairs 
but he expressed, to his honour, his public disapproba- 
tion of these unchristian modes of conversion bv the 
sword. But his remonstrances were unheard or unno- 
ticed, and he must have looked on, equally without 
power of interference, if that capricious tyranny had 
taken another course/ 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

Now if the sword were necessary at last, it was not 
until every endeavour had been made, by suppressing 
truth and giving specious attraction to error ; by seduc- 
tion, bribery, and fraud ; to obviate, if possible, the 
odium of employing, not more wicked, but more violent 
weapons. The pope's letter of congratulation was not 
likely to add much weight to his remonstrances, and if 
he had really wished to interfere, and had all Catholic 
Europe on his side, we apprehend from all we know of 
Louis XXV's maxims and character, that that monarch 
would have been too happy to have found such sanc- 
tions for continuing the mild policy which his own in- 
clination and Richelieu, Mazarin, and Colbert, his wisest 
advisers, had uniformly recommended. 

I trust that the work will throw an instructive light 
on the policy of the Reformed themselves. Viewed 
merely as a body of men holding certain opinions, about 
which none else need care, in which they only were 
interested, they might well accept the Edict of Nantes 
as a boon to them and to all France, wasted and worn 
as it was by a long course of civil and religious wars. 
But as the maintainers of a pure testimony in a cause 
interesting to all men equally with themselves, their 
acceptance of toleration on such conditions was truly a 
fatal act. As a Church, they were not only involved in 
the general responsibility of discipling all nations to the 
Saviour, and of bearing his name before Gentiles and 
before kings, but were specially bound to protest against 
the usurpation which had supplanted pure Christianity 
in France, at all those spots to which the people, by a 
natural instinct as well as from education and example, 
went up, in their successive generations, to worship 
the God of their fathers. At every such spot, that is, 
in every cathedral, parish church, and chapel, they knew 



INTRODUCTION. VII 

that the Gospel was perverted, concealed, and cor- 
rupted ; and that thus the general spirit of the nation 
and its government, was in a state of spiritual darkness, 
whose native hostility to the Gospel could never be 
effectually repressed although it might not at all times 
be equally vivacious and mischievous. Yet far from 
insisting for this freedom of protest, they accepted the 
toleration of an edict binding them to confine their 
testimony, whether given in the way of a pure worship 
or of preaching, or of the publication of books, within 
certain places and districts to the exclusion of all others. 
After this can we wonder that even Roman Catholic 
historians date their decline from the Edict of Nantes, not 
from its revocation ? Or can we longer wonder at the 
comparatively slow progress of the truth in the present 
day compared with the 16th century, when we know 
that so much of a like timid and shrinking system still 
prevails ? 

In selecting the materials for this first volume I could 
not well avoid giving the first place to De Rulhiere, who 
was employed by the government of Louis XVI., shortly 
before the engrossing events of 1789, to make re- 
searches into the laws relating to the Protestants, and 
whose work seems to have been lost sight of amid the 
exciting scenes of the revolution that soon followed. 
Although a diffuse and rambling writer, we are in- 
debted to him for much valuable information, and his 
descriptions of French society in general, and of the 
most prominent individual actors in the events of the 
period he elucidates, will I trust make that period more 
interesting to the British reader, and enable him also 
to judge more competently of what other materials may 
come under his notice. 

The extract from the Abbe Millot's political and 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

military Memoirs, mentioned in the prospectus of this 
publication, was found too long for insertion in the 
present volume. De Rulhiere so often quotes that work, 
that this is the less to be regretted. 

To some readers there may appear to be a tedious 
sameness in the Four pastoral letters. This could hardly 
be avoided where the subjects are identical, and I 
thought it better not to separate them, after having been 
circulated together among the overturned altars and 
scattered fires of French Protestantism. But to other 
readers this will seem a slight drawback on their value 
as affording us instructive glimpses of the religious 
communities to which they were addressed ; the tone 
of character prevailing among their pastors ; and the 
horrors of conscience which were probably, in by far 
the majority of instances, the most painful and the 
most enduring of the sufferings which the persecution 
brought in its train. 

The information in which the present volume will be 
thought most defective, is that respecting the specific 
plans and policy of the Roman Catholic clergy. This, 
I fear, must remain in a great measure conjectural, and 
on that account I considered that its appearance might 
best be made to succeed instead of preceding the posi- 
tive facts of the present volume. Should there be a 
call for the publication of another, I propose that its 
chief materials shall be drawn from La Politique du 
Clerge de France, and Les Derniers efforts de V Innocence 
affligee, both written, though by different authors, as 
conversations, and replete with interesting facts and 
speculations respecting the proceedings of the Roman 
Catholic clergy. 

The Appendices to this volume will be found not 
uninteresting. The Declaration of 1669 exhibits the 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

hard condition of Protestants, even under a law passed 
expressly for the curbing of their enemies, and the con- 
firmation of what were called their privileges. The 
progress of legislative wrong may be marked throughout 
Nos. IV. and VI. ; and Nos. II. III. and V. present 
us with a view of the efforts that were made to ensnare 
Protestants of all sorts, from such as could be influenced 
only by the purest motives to those from whom a paltry 
bribe could procure an immediate abjuration. 

For the sake of readers imperfectly acquainted with 
the previous history of the French Reformed, I subjoin 
the following : — 

HISTORICAL SKETCH.* 

In the days of Francis I. towards the middle of the 
1 6th century, it pleased God to diffuse the light of the 
reformation in France, shortly after it had begun to 
illuminate Germany and Switzerland. This divine illu- 
mination immediately excited much angry feeling, and 
infinite efforts were made to extinguish it. The fathers 
of the French Reformation were hunted down like wild 
beasts ; were hanged, drowned, and torn in pieces, 
consumed by slow fires, and slain in general massacres. 
Henry II.'s reign resembled that of his predecessor 
Francis I. So numerous were the condemnations that 
hardly could a sufficient number of executioners be 
found, even in that comparatively barbarous age. Yet 
amid all this cruelty and blood, fresh Christians seemed 
to rise from the blood of the slain. Persons of all con- 
ditions and both sexes, saw and openly confessed the 
truth, and among those who were thus illuminated, 
there were several of the higher nobility, officers in the 

* For the first part of this sketch I am indebted chiefly to a small 
work — Defense des libertez des Eglises Reformees de France, 1685. 



X INTRODUCTION. 

immediate service of the crown, and even members 
the roval house. The churches in which d: 
began to be purely conducted, met more 01 ruly 

as the times would permit. Ed 1559.. they ventured to' 
hold a national synod ipit : I : : F; 

was then that the Confession of Faith., which, with sc 
slight alteration, is that of the French Reformed at this 
day, was drawn up and adopted. Meanwhile Henry IT, 
continued his endeavours to crush the I 
before accomplishing this work of darkness, God per- 
mitted him to receive a wound at a tilti:. 
which he died in a few days. He was 
1559, by Francis II, a princ 
both in mind and body, that of himself he c : 
little harm. Being married, howevTi :; Mary Stn 
the Queen of Scotland, he naturally fell v. - in- 

fluence of her uncles, the princes of Guise, h: 
enemies of the Reformation, and men whose talents w 
but too equal to their ambition and fana:: 
three leaders of the Protestant part; at this time were 
Henry, King of Navarre, his brother, the Prince :: 
Conde, and that truly Christian patriot, the Admiral of 
France, de Coligny. These three ses sought 

entrap by inviting them the Sfe 

general at Orleans. The Prince of Conde the -red 

and condemned to death ranted to Is 

the other two, and to publish a law ting the pro- 

perty of the Protestants, and banishing them from the 
kingdom ; but God blasted their proj e 

: h e young km r w r h : ; e auth or: t 
and abused. 

Charles IX. succeeded, in I 5 
and the Guises sought to abuse his nonage as :. 
done that of his prede 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

under whose influence a law was passed in July 1561, for 
the suppression of the Protestant worship, and for 
transferring the cognisance of the crime of heresy to the 
Roman Catholic clergy. 

The state of parties, however, now so far favoured 
the Protestants. Jealousy of the house of Guise, made 
Catherine de Medicis, the Queen-mother, willing for 
some time to act the part of a mediatrix, though after- 
wards, partly from a like jealousy of the influence of 
de Coligny, she became a furious anti-protestant par- 
tisan. During the former period she convened the 
famous colloquy, or conference of Poissy, where many of 
the leading Roman Catholics and Protestants met to de- 
vise a plan for the accommodation of their differences, 
and though they did not succeed, the tolerant spirit re- 
commended by the Chancellor at the opening of the 
meeting, for a time influenced the government. To 
this period we must refer a singular document intituled 
' Remonstrances f aides au Pape Pie IV. de la part du 
Roy Charles IX. , ? found in a collection of pieces printed 
in 1565.* From it we learn ' that the Pope might dis- 
cover that a fourth part of the kingdom is separated from 
the communion of the church, which fourth part consists of 
GENTiLS-HOMMEsf, men of letters, chief burgesses in cities, 
and such of the common people as have seen most of the 
world and are practised in arms, so that the said sepa- 
rated persons, have no lack of force, having among them 

* Recueil des Choses Meraorables faites et passees pour le faict de la 
Religion et Etat de ce Royaurne depuis la mort du Roy Henry II. 
jusques au commencement des troubles. — Premier volume. The author 
of L'Es'prit de Ligue, says he had been assured that this volume was 
not in existence. He discovered it, however, in the library of the 
Duke of la Valliere. The copy in my possession had been preserved 
in a monastery at Versailles. — Ed. 

t Men of noble blood, and therefore soldiers by profession. 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

an infinite number of Gentils-hommes, and many old 
soldiers of long experience in war. Neither do they lack 
good counsels, having among them three parts of the men 
of letters; neither do they lack money, having among 
them a great part of the good wealthy families, both of 
the nobility and of the Tiers etat,* and what is more, they 
are so united, and so resolved never to abandon each other, 
that it is hopeless to attempt dividing them, SfC. The 
pontiff is afterwards told, that besides this immense 
body in a state of actual separation, there were ' very 
many others who were loath to leave the church, and yet had 
a continual struggle of conscience on the worship of images, 
the administration of the sacraments, and the mass/ 

This striking picture of the state of France between 
1561 and 1565, sufficiently accounts for the elasticity 
with which the Protestants recovered from their fre- 
quent defeats, and the extraordinary manner in which 
they seemed to multiply more than in proportion as 
they were slain. Thus even the massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew's eve, in 1572, was followed by an accession 
numerically exceeding the victims of that awful scene. f 
After about forty years of unresisted persecution, during 
which the only arms of the Protestants were ' prayers, 
and tears, and constancy/ civil oppression and misgo- 
vernment had involved France in troubles which easilv * 
assumed a religious aspect. These, though again and 
again appeased by edicts of toleration, and accompanied 
with an ever increasing extent of securities in its favour, 
were finally extinguished only by the establishment of 

* The commonalty, including the highest officers of the crown, 
judges and other lawyers, physicians, &c. if not of noble blood, until 
ennobled by patents of nobility. 

f For an account of that massacre, see Sir W. S. R. Cockbum's 
' Massacre of St. Bartholomew,' Mr. Browning's ' History of the 
Huguenots,' or the Supplement to the Saturday Magazine for Dec. 1839. 



INTRODUCTION. XI11 

Henry IV. on the throne, followed by his granting the 
Edict of Nantes, in 1598. This period, too, lasted 
about forty years. The preponderance of physical force 
had continued to be on the side of the papacy, and the 
formation of the famous league of Bayonne, for the utter 
extermination of Protestantism throughout Europe, had 
given an intensity to that force which long encouraged 
its leaders with the hope of eventually annihilating 
the moral preponderance of Protestantism. 

The assassination of Henry IV. originating, like the 
gunpowder plot, in religious fanaticism, awoke anew 
the suspicions of the Protestants ; nor was the subse- 
quent conduct of the Roman Catholic Clergy and the 
government, of a nature to allav their alarm. ' On the 
death of Henry IV*,' says the Abbe Cerati, ' the clergy 
resumed their ancient audacity. At a meeting of the 
States General, they urged the pure and simple accep- 
tation of the Council of Trent, and rejected as rash, 
scandalous, and heretical, a bill presented by the Tiers 
etat for establishing the principle that no power, tem- 
poral or spiritual, can dispose of the kingdom, or dis- 
pense subjects from their oaths of allegiance/ * * * 
He adds that the ecclesiastics were still backed by the 
mass of the nation, and could dictate laws to their 
kings. But the Queen, who conducted the government 
during her son's minority, needed no such dictation, 
submitted to Spanish influence, and provoked the Pro- 
testants by various infractions of the Edict of Nantes. 
Meanwhile the popes w T ere not asleep.* Gregory XV. 

* See an ably condensed work lately published, which, without 
adopting all its opinions, we would recommend as a text book in 
universities and other schools, for a course of history with which every 
young Protestant should be familiar. — History of Popery, published 
by J. W. Parker. London. - 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

wrote to the young king, recommending the total ex- 
tirpation of the heretics, and sent a fanatic monk into 
France to preach a crusade against them. Urban IV. , 
with more moderation, followed the same course. 

But under this reign, as in the preceding century, 
other parties found causes for disgust and insubordina- 
tion, and now too, as then, the Protestants were tempted 
to take advantage of these for the purpose of strength- 
ening themselves, amidst the general jeopardy. Hence 
bloody wars and ill-suited alliances which lowered their 
character, and greatly diminished their moral power. 
Here, however, let Britons be considerate. A living 
historian, Ranke, has brought to light a fact which 
ought to soften any censure we may be inclined to pass 
on the conduct of our fellow Protestants in France, when 
they sought to retain by the sword, those securities which 
Richelieu resolved to wrest from them by the same 
weapon . To their last revolt they were urged by a 
British minister, Buckingham, who was aware, it seems, 
that an attack was projected against the Protestant 
cause in Britain, and took this method of diverting 
it from our shores upon them. Thus his two famous 
expeditions for the relief of Rochelle, were made suc- 
cessfully in the interest of England, though very unsuc- 
cessfully in that of her brave allies. 

It was only in 1629, that they were finally put down 
by the terrible energy of Richelieu, who, however, re- 
newed to them by the Edict of Nismes, the toleration, 
though not the securities, granted by that of Nantes. 

Richelieu's moderation at that period had perhaps a 
more honourable source than that of the Edict of Nantes, 
which the preamble to the Edict of Revocation plainly 
confesses to have been insincere, and intended only to 
deceive the Protestants- into a false and dangerous secu- 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

rity. That great statesman's grand objects were the 
subordination of the great lords to their sovereign, the 
putting the Protestants into a condition such as would 
prevent all future attempts to revolt, and the humilia- 
tion of the house of Austria, particularly in its Spanish 
branch.* Now it might have promoted all three, could 
he have infused into the body politic the best qualities 
of both the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, 
instead of allowing these to weaken the state by a con- 
tinued course of mutual antagonism. To some such 
view we may doubtless ascribe his plan for incorporating 
both into one church, to be independent of the pope, 
and subject only to a French patriarch and the king. 
And to this he may have been further urged by con- 
tempt for the court of Rome, and by jealousy of the 
company of Jesuits. The former power had fallen into 
great inconsideration, but the latter, as if it behoved 
the militia of modern Rome to imitate the armies of the 
ancient empire in its decline, seemed sufficiently dis- 
posed to usurp the government it was sworn to obey. 
Better to have the Gallican church independent and 
national, than left to the nominal guidance of the papacy 
and the real controul of a corporation, consisting of men 
of all nations, and incapable of being nationalized any- 
where. From the granting of the Edict of Xismes, down 
to the death of Mazarin, the French Protestants appear 
in the annals of France, only as good and faithful sub- 
jects, maintaining the rights of the monarchy amid the 
agitations of the sedition called the Fronde. 

We have seen what were the numbers and resources 
of the Protestant party in France, in the reign of 
Charles IX. What they were in that of Louis XIII. 

* Chantrau, vol. i. p. 299. 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

may be guessed from an expression employed by Car- 
dinal Richelieu in his Political Testament, speaking of 
the state of France when he was first entrusted with 
the administration, — Us partagaient Vetat, that is, divided 
political power with the king. 

The preamble to the Edict of Revocation supplies the 
true key to the policy of the Edict of Nantes, and the 
best justification of the distrust and alleged rebellions of 
the Protestants from 1610 to 1629. While the philo- 
sophic statesman saw in the settlement of 1598, the 
triumph of reason over fanaticism ; while the simple 
Protestant hailed in it the commencement of a peaceful 
aera, which would prove that truth is great and will pre- 
vail ; the far-seeing Jesuit, with a better appreciation of 
his own instruments, the passions and the weaknesses 
of man, saw a sure step gained in the interests of Rome. 
We can hardly suppose that Henry IV. meant to dupe 
the Reformed, just as they had established him on the 
throne. But in the preamble of his grandson's revoca- 
tion, the party which made both monarchs its tools in 
turn, plainly avows that the peace it had proclaimed in 
1598, and the liberal maxims it professed and practised 
afterwards, were mere blinds, under covert of which 
those enemies whom wars and massacres had failed to 
exterminate, were to be gradually weakened and under- 
mined, till too weak to withstand any such crisis as 
that at length produced by the joint eflb rts of La Chaise, 
Louvois, and De Maintenon. 

D. D.S. 



No. I. 



S 



DE RULHIERE'S 
HISTORICAL ELUCIDATIONS 

OP THE 

CAUSES OF THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 



CHAPTER I. 

Author s sources of information. 

The pious and benevolent intentions which led Louis 
the XlVth to revoke the Edict of Nantes, have been 
cruelly disappointed, as for the last hundred years has 
been daily proved. But can we believe, that a prince 
whose mind was so equal to the greatness of his for- 
tune, was the real author of an odious and useless per- 
secution ? Was it his own wish that his name and 
sanction should be so readily employed in contravening 
the laws by which he had superseded that Edict ? The 
questions how, by whom, and how far he was deceived 
in the choice of his measures, and the execution of his 
orders, for the conversion of his Calvinist subjects, 
remain to this day unresolved ; and historians hitherto 



2 AUTHOR S SOURCES 

have been debarred from access to the records, without 
consulting which, it is impossible to elucidate this 
embarrassing portion of a glorious reign. 

The public has now for some years had before it the 
Memoirs of Noailles, Maintenon's Letters, the Recol- 
lections of Caylus, and the Memoirs of Louis the XlVth 
himself, on the first ten years of his government, 
j>rinted, it is true, with a most perverse infidelity,* but 
extant, also, in an undoubtedly authentic manuscript, 
now deposited in the royal library, and which I have 
been allowed to consult. I have likewise had access to 
several other works not less authentic, none of which, 
however, contain any complete account of that great 
revolution, although by their accord where they agree, 
and by apparent contradictions which a very slight 
investigation is sufficient to reconcile, they throw con- 
siderable light on the subject. In fine, government 
having wisely resolved to make itself thoroughly ac- 
quainted with every thing relating to the French Cal- 
vinists, I have availed myself of this determination to 
push my researches into the most secret archives of the 
Louvre, the Augustines, at the war office, and at the 
foreign office. I have made a collection of the instruc- 
tions, hitherto unknown, which were transmitted to 
the provincial Intendants ; of the orders issued to the 
military Commandants ; of the letters addressed to the 
Bishops, the Magistrates, and to some of the Foreign 
Ambassadors ; of the memorials transmitted to the 
King or his ministers; of the reports on which almost 
all the resolutions of the cabinet were based, and of 
those containing the discussion of the motives and in- 



•*& 



* It is to be regretted that the English translation of these Me- 
moirs, published by Longman and Co. about thirty years ago, appears 
to have all the perverse infidelity of the French original. — Ed. 



OF INFORMATION. 3 

tentions of that multitude of laws which followed one 
another so rapidly. 

Such are the documents which I have to offer to the 
public in justification of the views I have been led to 
adopt. Much as has been written on the subject before, 
I believe this publication will be found fresh and in- 
teresting. 

The most general remark suggested by these inves- 
tigations is, that they who detract from Louis the 
XlVth's character, as well as the crowd of his pane- 
gyrists, though impelled by opposite feelings, have 
fallen into a common error. Both have asserted that 
there existed from the very commencement of his reign, 
a fixed design to bring all his subjects into the same 
religion, and that its execution was delayed for twenty 
years, only that there might be a greater certainty of 
success ; that the blows inflicted in the course of that 
long period, had their violence concealed, while there 
was no abatement of their force ; that the many pri- 
vileges enjoyed by the sectarians were by little and 
little pruned off, and that, one after another, every stay 
they had was slowly undermined, in order to save the 
nation from the violent shock that would have been 
caused by their sudden fall. Some have even traced 
back this presumed system to the reign of Louis the 
XHIth, and to that, too, of Henry the IVth, not aware 
that in doing so, they ascribe to our kings a dissimula- 
tion and a perfidy, very remote from the openness of 
Frenchmen, and at the same time impute to their 
counsels a consistency of plan, and an unity of purpose, 
equally remote from our national character.* 

* The probability is, that the French kings and governments were 
the dupes and tools, for long, of a policy far more long-sighted and 
astute than they could pretend to. — Ed. 

b 2 



4 HISTORICAL MISTAKES. 

It is admitted that the greater number of writers 
who during that, and the preceding century, devoted 
themselves to historical investigation, pursued a wrong 
course. They assumed that great events were invaria- 
bly the results of grand designs, and ascribed every 
thing to forethought and policy. It is true that a not 
less defective method has prevailed among writers of 
our own days, while they affect to connect great events 
with frivolous causes, and not only allow nothing to be 
put down to the account of prudence, by imputing all to 
fortune, but, assuming the non-existence of preconcerted 
means, neglectthe true relation which events hold to each 
other, and fail to observe that what may not have been 
foreseen, may not the less have been inevitable, And, 
besides this, they perpetually confound causes with 
occasions. Our researches have preserved us from both 
these mistakes. By taking for our guides men who 
shared in the most secret deliberations, we have learnt 
to distinguish what was the result of design, from what 
was merely fortuitous in the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes. 



CHAPTER II. 

State of the Reformed in 1661. — The consequences of the 
Edict of Nantes. — Cardinal Richelieu's treatment of 
the Reformed. — State of France at the time of the 
Fronde. — Louis XlVth's account of the position of 
affairs when he took the government into his ovm hands. 
—His decided testimony in favour of the Reformed. 

When Louis the XlVth took the government into his 
own hands, the Protestants of France no longer formed 
a faction in the state. With all other subjects, and, 
what is remarkable, although it has never yet been re- 
marked, more than all other subjects, they submitted to 
the yoke of the sovereign's authority. If, at an earlier 
period they opposed open force, and took up arms to 
lay them down again, only on having certain cities 
placed in their hands as pledges to secure their safety, 
that was but according to the genius of those times, 
and could not be referred to any thing peculiar to them 
as a sect. As a sect, on the contrary, they cherished 
the principles which prevailed in the early ages of 
Christianity, so as from the first to recommend patience 
and resignation as pre-eminently the virtues of the 
primitive Christian Church. If we are to give credit to 
certain declaimers, but for the appearance of the Re- 
formed in France, there would never have been revolt 
or civil war. Such men would almost impute to the 
Huguenots the sedition of the Maillotins, and the war 



b STATE OF THE 

of the public good. But the Reformed did no more 
than struggle for freedom of conscience at a time when 
princes, barons, and even burgesses, were ever ready to 
take up arms in defence of their most insignificant 
privileges ; when the Roman Catholic clergy taught 
that all the crowns of this world were subordinate to 
the tiara, and that the pope could absolve subjects from 
their oaths of allegiance ; finally, when the house of 
Bourbon had of set purpose increased their numbers, 
had in some measure exasperated their disquietude, had 
promised to extinguish the fires that had been lighted 
for their punishment, and had armed them in support 
of its own proper rights. 

Not less remarkable was the manner in which they 
were crushed. It has not been sufficiently observed 
that at the period of their obtaining the edict of Nantes, 
they already shewed symptoms of that decline which 
terminated in their ruin. No sooner did the Bourbons 
ascend the throne, than there was a change in their 
administration of their own affairs. On the conversion 
of Henry IV., they refused to elect from among the 
chiefs of their sect, any other protector, and he was 
the last on whom that title was bestowed. The powers 
of the protectorate were transferred to an assembly of 
nobles, pastors, and burgesses, modelled after the 
states general of the nation, and to this council, all the 
Reformed who wished to make common cause with their 
brethren, were bound to submit. The princes and 
nobles could no longer exercise the dangerous authority 
with which the preceding troubles had clothed them, 
and their last chief, the Duke of Rohan, was not really 
such, as the Condes and the King of Navarre had been, 
but whatever may have been his talents, birth and vir- 
tues, he was only one of several generals who received 



FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 7 

their orders from the assembly. This state of things, 
it was alleged, constituted a republic within a kingdom, 
but it was this that ruined them as a party. A com- 
monwealth, without either a temporal or a spiritual 
chief, soon fell to pieces. Liberty of worship once 
assured to them, they had no longer any common bond 
of union. The princes and grandees, relinquishing all 
hope of securing for them the means of playing a first 
part, speedily submitted to the regal authority. The 
ambition of the principal Calvinist families, led them 
from that time forth to look to the honours of the 
court, and to commands in the royal forces ; and to 
shew how far a professed difference of creed had become 
a pretext for factious conduct, no sooner were the affairs 
of the Reformed limited to religious interests and per- 
sonal safety, than they were abandoned, almost uni- 
versally, by the great. 

The Edict of Nantes itself was far from being perfect 
as a great national act. Not that we would diminish 
the respect and esteem which have ever been accorded 
to the profound wisdom of its authors, but it must be 
remarked that the Roman Catholics, on the one hand, 
followed up the advantages they had gained by dictating 
the chief articles of the edict, and it was easy to see 
by how many artifices they made it a stepping-stone to 
the final suppression of Calvinism ; while on the other 
hand, some of the separate articles were dictated by 
the Calvinists, and seemed to prepare the way for 
France becoming Protestant. The legislator did his 
utmost to hold the balance even between the parties, 
and as still subsisting animosities prevented his accom- 
plishing more than was requisite in order to insure 
public tranquillity, he left time to decide the grand 
question at issue between them. Time decided against 



8 richelieu's treatment 

the Calvinists. Not that the edict was formally attacked, 
but its separate articles were destroyed in detail. 

The circumscription of the privileges of the Reformed 
was the work of Cardinal Richelieu. He took back 
their guarantee towns, originally conceded for a limited 
term, which though prolonged after that statesman's 
coming into power, had expired anew. But if persons 
who had narrowly escaped being burnt alive or butchered 
at the massacre of St. Bartholomew, were thought ex- 
cusable for having demanded these cities as places of 
refuge, and as pledges for their safety, Richelieu con- 
sidered that they might be equally excused for refusing 
to surrender them when the assassination of Henry IV. 
dictated by hatred to their faith, inspired them with new 
alarms. Even the inexorable Richelieu could pardon this, 
and while he dismantled all their strong places, he con- 
tinued to them the enjoyment of liberty of worship 
and certain other privileges. He held that under an 
administration such as his, the firmness and good faith 
of the government might be accepted as the surest 
asylum and the best of guarantees. He took from 
them, likewise, the right of holding political meet- 
ings. This, indeed, formed no part of the privi- 
leges accorded to them by the Edict of Nantes, the 
king's special leave having been necessary before any 
such meeting could be convened. Now, however, thev 
were not even to be allowed to petition for leave to 
meet : and, to say the truth, at a time when the States 
general of the nation had ceased to be called together, 
it would have implied the utmost inconsistency and ex- 
travagance, had the members of a religious party, dif- 
fering from the predominant religion, been entitled, as 
such, to meet in public, and to present their complaints 
and memorials to the kins:. 



OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 9 

It was Richelieu, also, who made it an established 
maxim of government not to bestow on the Reformed 
any of the offices of greatest dignity at court, or in the 
army, unless in very special cases. The Edict of Nantes 
declared them capable of holding any office, but did not 
entitle them to all favours. This clause it became a 
principle of administration rigorously to enforce, and 
it was resolved that those only of the Reformed who 
should distinguish themselves by the most signal ser- 
vices, should be invested with the highest honours. 
This policy tended to detach from the Reformed party 
all whose convictions were weaker than their ambition, 
and to produce among those who persevered in serving 
God after their own views, the utmost emulation in 
serving the king. 

The Reformed accordingly had emancipated them- 
selves from the hands of ambitious grandees, and 
Richelieu had united them to the general body of the 
nation. In short, from that time the kingdom enjoyed 
absolute repose from disorders originating in religious 
differences. Unfettered and unmolested, the Reformed 
had no common object to make them formidable by 
uniting them, and took no part in the factions which 
continued to agitate France. Montauban and Rochelle lay 
dismantled and submissive, while Paris raised barricades, 
and chased from her walls, the king, the regent, and 
the court. Mazarin said of the Reformed : ' I have no 
complaint to make of the little flock : though it browse 
on weeds, it does not stray/ So much inclined was that 
statesman to do them justice, that when the clergy and 
their synod complained mutually of each other, he ap- 
pointed commissioners, chosen in equal numbers from 
both sides, to visit the provinces, and repair the infrac- 
tions of the Edict of Nantes, that had occurred during 

b 5 



10 STATE OF FRANCE AT THE 

the troubles of the Fronde. These commissions were 
conceived in a spirit of the strictest equity. After an 
interval of sixteen years, it is true, they proved one of 
the most efficient instruments in accomplishing the ruin 
of the Reformed, but we shall at the same time dis- 
cover that in the course of those years the spirit of the 
government underwent a change. The powers to be 
assigned to the commissioners were not yet announced 
when the Cardinal died ; so that this became one of 
the first acts of Louis the XlVth's own adminis- 
tration. He refers to it in his memoirs, in proof of 
his impartiality, and as part of the moderate system 
he had determined to pursue with respect to the 
Reformed. 

Now when that prince took the reins of government into 
his own hands, the Reformed religion, though without 
any share in the rights of the dominant church, was 
more than tolerated; it was allowed and authorized. 
In case of either side infringing the edict or giving any 
other cause for complaint, the restoration of order, in so 
far as the administration was concerned, was a simple affair 
of police. What had long been a formidable faction, 
was in reality extinct. 

The sovereign's authority, on the contrary, was daily 
acquiring new extension and force. The new constitu- 
tion of the armies, the superiority of disciplined troops 
over hastily assembled militia, the constant and for- 
midable employment of artillery at an expense beyond 
what the richest subject could afford, the new art of 
fortifying cities, and all those other prodigious im- 
provements in the art of war, the continual atten- 
tion and cost required by which could be met by nothing 
short of the resources of a great state, and the whole 
of the establishments connected with which are in 



TIME OF THE FRONDE. 11 

France placed at the sole disposal of the monarch — all 
this made it impossible for any formidable faction to 
gather head. The nobility of both religions had lost 
sight of their feudal homes, and knew no standards but 
those of their prince ; the country squire lived retired 
in his province, enjoying none of his former consider- 
ation ; subordinate officers had each only the considera- 
tion attached to his rank, and commanders-in-chief had 
no powers beyond what were comprised in their com- 
missions while they lasted. Personal influence, birth, 
talents, large property and the lustre acquired by bril- 
liant services, were regarded but as so many titles to 
the enjoyment of court favour, and in such claims lay 
their highest value. In short, public opinion, social 
manners, and the general condition of the nation, no 
longer admitted any scope for opposing the royal will 
and rendered it utterly hopeless for any one, be he who 
he might, to make the attempt. 

This is not the place to inquire how the restless and 
seditious spirit which had so lately broken out in the 
troubles of the Fronde dissipated itself in that weak and 
foolish effort. We would simply remark that it forms a 
more interesting epoch in the history of France than 
one would at first imagine. Never, perhaps, was there 
a more favourable opportunity, during the whole course 
of the French monarchy, for establishing a wise consti- 
tution, the only advantage which has all along been 
wanting in France. The royal authority, after having 
passed through the hands of an absolute and severe 
minister, who exercised it as if it had been a dictator- 
ship — the terrible necessity of stormy times —had fallen 
into hesitating and timid hands. Those religious quar- 
rels, which for a century had made all conciliation of 
parties in France impossible, were extinct. The chief 



12 FOLLY OF THE FRENCH. 

nobility, (les grands), whose sole effort since the over- 
throw of feudal government, had been to make them- 
selves the ministers of the royal authority, and thus to 
preserve some appearance of consideration, and an 
authority which did not personally belong to them had 
just seen with what ease an able and firm minister had 
despoiled them of that borrowed power and annihilated 
their fictitious grandeur. The boards of magistrates 
(compagnies de MagistratureJ to which with us are com- 
mitted the safe keeping of the laws, must, under the 
previous ministry, have felt the imprudence of their for- 
mer efforts to put themselves in the place of the States 
General. After an experience which might have turned 
to their advantage, they had learned that if they per- 
sisted in the mad project of supplanting the National 
Assemblies as a check on despotism, and at the same 
time of associating themselves in the government with 
the royal authority against the nation, they would fail in 
this double enterprise, and leave the people in the same 
bondage into which they fell themselves. The Tiers 
Etat was not as yet utterly debased. The nation began 
to enlighten itself by the cultivation of all the intellec- 
tual arts. Finally, never did one nation possess at the 
same time so many great men in every department ; and 
yet never did a nation appear so incapable of self-govern- 
ment, or display more vanity, more inconsiderateness, 
more neglect of its grand interests, while giving itself 
up to the most futile passions. All orders of the people 
went astray, blindly following imprudent chiefs. Such 
favourable conjunctures produced among us only the 
most ridiculous war ever spoken of in history ; and a 
foreign Cardinal, having made himself master of the 
kingdom, at the close of so much useless agitation, 
delivered from his death-bed into the hands of the king 



LOUIS THE Xiv's DIFFICULTIES. 13 

an authority fully confirmed, and a power that nothing 
could shake. 

But not to wander too far from our subject, turn we 
to the words of Louis the XIV. himself, speaking of the 
first years of his personal administration. Addressing 
the Dauphin at the commencement of his Memoirs, he 
thus proceeds — ' Not doubting that the affairs in which 
I have borne a part are so considerable and important as 
one day to furnish employment to the genius, and fuel to 
the passions of public writers, I wish you to find in 
these pages the means of correcting history when it errs 
or misrepresents, whether from ignorance of facts, or 
from not comprehending my designs and the motives 
which prompted them.' Here, then, we may apply 
these Memoirs to the very purpose for which they were 
first intended, and turn them to good account in correct- 
ing history, where, in relating the most important events 
of that reign, she has committed mistakes. 

The king first justifies himself in having allowed 
Mazarin to conduct public affairs so long, and, so to 
speak, to reign, in doing which he thus describes the 
difficulties of the government : — ' Both before and sub- 
sequent to my majority, the kingdom was much agi- 
tated; a foreign war concurred with these domestic 
agitations to deprive France of a thousand advantages ; 
my enemies had at their head a prince of my own blood 
and of the very first reputation, the great Conde ; the 
state was tormented with cabals ; the parliaments still 
possessed, and had a taste for exercising, an usurped 
authority ; in my own court, there was little disinter- 
ested fidelity ; and thus even such of my subjects as 
appeared most submissive, were no less chargeable and 
formidable than my greatest enemies ; the minister who 
had been restored to office in the face of so many fac- 



14 LOUIS THE XIV COMPLAINS 

tions, was very able, very adroit, a man who loved me 
and was loved in turn, who had done me signal services, 
although the cast of his mind and manners exceedingly 
differed from mine ; a man, nevertheless, whom I dared 
neither contradict, nor even deprive of the smallest par- 
ticle of his credit, without, by such a mere semblance 
of disgrace, risking the return of the same storms I had 
found it so difficult to hush ; I myself still very young ; 
major, it is true, according to the term which, for the 
avoidance of worse evils, the laws have fixed for kings, 
but not according to the rule fixed for permitting pri- 
vate persons to enter on the management of their affairs, 
knowing only the weight of the burden destined for my 
shoulders, but incapable as yet of judging what strength 
I could command for bearing it/ 

He goes on to enumerate the various evils affecting 
the state when he himself undertook the government ; 
the pretensions of the grandees, men accustomed to sell 
their services and make a trade of their allegiance ; the 
prostitution of all favours ; the ruin of the finances ; 
justice venal and arbitrary ; the magistracy full of dis- 
orders, and these countenanced by the example even of 
the royal council ; the nobility depreciated by those who 
had usurped it, and rendered odious throughout the 
kingdom in consequence of their tyranny ; the church 
divided by disputes, in themselves indifferent, but so 
imbittered by human interests that there was room to 
fear a schism, and in these disputes, they who were in 
the wrong supported by bishops of great reputation. 
great piety, and possessing much influence with the 
people. 

He then complains of the clergy, the Jansenists, the 
nobility, the court, the magistracy, the finance depart- 
ment, without a single word about the Calvinists. He 



OF ALL BUT THE PROTESTANTS. 15 

proceeds to congratulate himself that the domestic 
tranquillity enjoyed at home, and the peace with foreign 
powers, presented a favourable opportunity for remedy- 
ing all these evils. * There was neither any commotion/ 
says he, 'nor apprehension or appearance of commotion 
in the kingdom/ and the Pope is the only foreign power 
whose ill will towards France is made the subject of 
remark. After this he states what were the motives 
that led to the choice of his cabinet, and in naming those 
secretaries of state who were not ministers, he adds, 
what bears strongly on our subject — f La Vrilliere and 
Du Plessis were good enough people, but endowed with 
no more capacitv than their posts required, and these 
had nothing of much importance attached to them ; ' now 
the general affairs of the Pretended Reformed composed 
nearly the whole department of La Vrilliere. Such, 
then, was the opinion of Louis the XIV. himself, with 
regard to that part of the public administration. It was 
no longer to be reckoned of national importance, since 
a man, undistinguished for either intelligence or genius, 
sufficed for superintending it. Could there possibly be 
a more complete refutation of the many vague charges 
that have been heaped on the Calvinists of those times, 
or of the false interpretations put upon Louis the XIV s 
conduct towards them ? It was in no obscure writing, 
or at the beginning of his reign, that that prince thus 
expressed himself, but in what he dictated for the edu- 
cation of his son in 1671 ; and even Pelisson who often 
wrote to his dictation, in the panegyric he pronounced 
on the prince before the French academy, announced 
the work to the public as follows : — * After selecting for 
his son's education men of so much wisdom and learn- 
ing as to make it appear that he did not mean to take 
any share in it himself, he took it up as if none were to 



16 pelisson's panegyric. 

second him, and so as even to commit to writing, for 
the benefit of his beloved child, the secrets of his king- 
dom, and those eternal lessons which were to teach him 
what he had to avoid and what to pursue. Thus he 
becomes the father not of that able prince alone, nor of 
the people only over whom he reigned, but of all the 
kings who were to follow him/ 



CHAPTER IIL 

Consequences to the Reformed of their ceasing to be 
feared. — Mutual liberality between them and the Ro- 
manists, succeeded by a growing animosity on the part 
the latter. — The policy of VHopital, de Thou, and 
Richelieu, abandoned in proportion as the Reformed 
became weak and worldly. — Growing hostility of the 
courts of justice, the Intendants, and the Romish 
Clergy. — Great disparity of strength between the Papal 
and Reformed Churches. — Law against the Relapsed 
carried in spite of Louis the Fourteenth's boasted impar- 
tiality. — Nature and importance of that law. 

But from the moment that the Huguenots ceased to be 
feared, a hatred which time had failed to moderate, 
broke out against them everywhere and openly. Ani- 
mosity survived actual violence, and, in the minds of 
many, too, fear survived danger. The embers of the 
league were not yet quite extinguished ; and here we 
cannot avoid making this observation, that when Louis 
the Fourteenth revoked the Edict of Nantes, and suff- 
ered one of his ministers greatly to exceed the rigour of 
a simple revocation, he gave way to the tide of popular 
animosity, while at the present day,* that sentiment is 
changed into a feeling of general sympathy, so that the 



1788. 



18 MUTUAL LIBERALITY ENCOURAGED. 

monarch who allows himself to be turned in then favour, 
and restores some of their civil rights to these unfor- 
tunate persons, will, also, like Louis the Fourteenth, 
yield to the almost universal wishes of his people. 

At the time of which we speak, it could not be alleged 
that there was an absence of all happy concord between 
those who professed the two religions, in the army, on 
board the fleets, or even at the court itself. More than 
this, there were Calvinists at that time, who commanded 
universal respect, some for eminent public services, 
others on account of their vast learning, others for a 
certain austere probity, others for amiability and wit. 
' Long before the revocation of the edict of Nantes,' 
says Segrais, speaking of the town of Caen, ■ the Catho- 
lics and Huguenots lived together on the most amicable 
terms. They ate, they drank, they amused themselves 
in each other's company, and then separated without 
any feeling of restraint, the former to go to mass, the 
latter to hear sermon, without scandal on either side.' 

The cultivation of literature contributed to produce 
this spirit of mutual conciliation. Persons who are least 
acquainted with the history of French literature, are at 
least aware that the friendship subsisting between some 
members of the two religions, led to the formation of 
the French academy, but it is less generally known that 
such, also, was the origin of the academy of Caen, that 
of Nismes, and several others. Bishops of celebrity 
honoured themselves by presiding at such meetings ; and 
some, in the provinces, declared themselves even their 
protectors, in this following the example of Cardinal 
Richelieu. Thus although the revival of letters in the 
early part of the fifteenth century, engendered the evils 
of schism; in advancing to perfection they softened 
men's spirits and superseded the disputes of a dangerous 



ANIMOSITY PREVAILS. 19 

erudition, by promoting mutual regard among persons 
who differed in their opinions. 

Such, however, was not as yet the popular spirit, that 
spirit which, even under the most absolute monarchies, 
often succeeds in pronouncing what shall be law ; and 
at the time of which we speak, not the clergy alone, 
but the parliaments, the supreme courts, the universi- 
ties, the merchant's and trade's corporations, omitted 
no opportunity of indulging their pious animosities. No 
sooner did an occasion offer, in any particular case, for 
infringing the Edict of Nantes, by demolishing a Pro- 
testant church, by suppressing divine service, or by 
depriving a Protestant of his livelihood, than it was 
thought that a new triumph had been gained over 
heresy. Every kind of public calamity was loudly 
ascribed to the curse they drew down from heaven ; 
every crime, the authors of which were unknown, was 
unhesitatingly imputed to them, until the discovery of 
its real perpetrators. The general impression was, that 
they had extorted, sword in hand, the privileges they 
enjoyed ; it being forgotten that the first edict in their 
favour, that of 1562, was granted at an assembly of 
notables, without war or bloodshed, and after the princes 
of the blood-royal had re-acquired their legitimate influ- 
ence in the privy council ; that the Edict of Nantes was 
the result of long discussions, and was granted in favour 
of the party which had done most to place Henry the 
Fourth on the throne ; and, lastly, that the edict of 
1629, was bestowed on the Protestants when vanquished 
and submissive, under the title of an edict of pardon, 
(edit de grace.) These were the three grand epochs of 
the concessions in their favour, and the terms in which 
they were conceived, had for their authors the Chan- 
cellor l'Hopital, the President De Thou, and Cardinal 



20 PARTIALITY OF THE JUDGES, AND 

Richelieu, men whose names were respected by the 
whole nation, and seemed but other words for justice, 
integrity, and genius. The number of enlightened per- 
sons, however, is always small, and such alone respected 
those laws as they deserved. They did not tally with 
the reasonings of hatred and fanaticism. The reformed 
were not to be forgiven for having survived so many 
anathemas and proscriptions, and according to the 
popular notion, the country endured them at all, only 
because they had compelled it to endure them. Such 
was the violence of this resentment, that it seemed to 
corrupt the sense of right and wrong in the most vir- 
tuous persons. Swayed by it, magistrates of the great- 
est integrity otherwise, concluded that the law ought 
never to be favourably interpreted where the Calvinists 
were affected by it; but on the contrary, that every 
legal expression should receive its most rigorous inter- 
pretation when applied to them. Such magistrates, 
accordingly, decided all questions in which the reformed 
were interested, according to that strictness of justice 
which an ancient and approved maxim stigmatises as 
the greatest injustice.* If any one right they pos- 
sessed, could in any way be impugned, from the instant 
their cause seemed not absolutely incontestible, they 
might consider it as lost. Such was the spirit that dic- 
tated numerous judgments pronounced in individual 
cases, by the extraordinary courts called grands jours, 
by the privy council, and by the provincial intendants. 

The last of these was a new authority, and as it had 
no existence at the time of the granting of the Edict of 
Nantes, the negotiators of that measure could not be 
expected to guard against danger from such a quarter, 

* Summamjus, summa injuria, 



PROVINCIAL INTENDANTS. 21 

In fact, the ordinances which to this day constitute our 
public law, intended only that the masters of requests, 
in such order as the chancellor might from year to year 
prescribe, should make tours through the provinces, for 
the purpose of receiving the complaints of the people 
with regard to the non-enforcement of the laws, and 
should send up reports on those complaints to the chan- 
cellor. Thus they formed a system of vigilant inspec- 
tion, not a dangerous authority. It would appear that 
the civil wars interrupted the operations of this wise 
institution, and though it was naturally to be expected 
that these yearly visitations would re -commence on the 
return of public tranquillity, how could the Calvinists 
foresee that a system of inspection, intended for the pro- 
tection of the laws, would speedily become an oppressive 
authority ? The negotiators of the edict secured for the 
Protestants an equality of civil rights with other sub- 
jects, protection from the assaults of popular animosity, 
and the impartial administration of justice. Some years 
later, Richelieu, although he maintained that they could 
live securely in the same towns with the Roman Catho- 
lics, yet had no idea that they could receive impartial 
justice from the same tribunals. From that time for- 
ward, not only were the yearly delegates despatched 
into all the provinces, on the old pretext of receiving 
the complaints of the inhabitants against the oppression 
and molestation they might have suffered in the admin- 
istration of the laws, the collection of the revenue, or 
the abuse of power, influence and authority by the aris- 
tocracy, and even to keep an eye over ecclesiastical per- 
sons ; but this kind of inquisitors soon became settled 
functionaries in all the chief capitals, notwithstanding 
what Richelieu himself foresaw might arise from their 
permanent residence, as being more likely, he said, to 



22 ROMANIST ENCROACHMENTS. 

flatter their vanity than to promote the public good* 
They succeeded, at length, in depriving the supreme 
courts of a considerable part of their jurisdiction, the 
commissioners of taxes of their office, the marischals of 
France of a great part of the military police, and, in 
fine, they engrossed to themselves nearly the whole 
jurisdiction of the provincial governors and com- 
mandants. 

No sooner had people leave to complain, than com- 
plaints on this subject came up from all quarters, and it 
became one of the chief grievances of the nation during 
the troubles of the Fronde. The recall of the Intend- 
ants was demanded from the courts, which, after pro- 
mising, eluded its promises to do so. Thus it appears 
that the court of justice established in favour of the 
Protestants, suffered only the common fate of all the 
tribunals. The government had no idea of attacking 
the Edict of Nantes. It aimed at superseding the 
ancient forms of administration common to the whole 
kingdom, yet it was not the less one of the consequences 
of the change, that many causes in which Protestants 
were interested, were subjected to arbitrary decisions 
pronounced in contravention of the tenor of the edict. 

The Roman Catholic clergy had preserved advantages 
over the Protestants, which, however fair at first, went 
on augmenting from year to year. Every one knows 
that a reform of the clergy was the single and real 
object of the innovators of the preceding century,* and 
that it was only during the heat of dispute on that sub- 
ject, that they passed from the examination of manners 
to the investigation of doctrines. From that moment 
the clergy found they could easily cloak their resent- 

* This is one of those bold, though unfounded assertions, which the 
author probably owed to his education in some Romish College. — Ed. 



MUTUAL ATTACKS. 23 

ment under the pretexts of regard for the salvation of 
souls. Far be it from us to calumniate the clergy of 
France : we desire to give them all credit for their vir- 
tues. Be it remembered, that the gentlest times expe- 
rienced by these heretics in this kingdom, since 1629, 
when left to the mercy of the government, were com- 
prised in the long space during which three cardinals, 
Richelieu, Mazarin, and Fleury, conducted public 
affairs ; and that when Louis XIV., contrary alike to 
his principles and inclination, allowed himself to be 
borne along by the general tide of intolerance, it was 
Cardinal de Noailles, the only man, that in the course 
of so long a reign enjoyed much credit at court for any 
considerable length of time, who succeeded in suspend- 
ing the persecution. Such moderation, however, must 
be referred rather to the personal and individual senti- 
ments of these four princes of the church, than to the 
prevailing feelings of the clergy. The Protestant pas- 
tors, it must be owned, were at no pains to cool this 
hatred towards them, but gravely employed themselves 
at their synods in declaring ' the Pope to be Anti- 
christ/ and the Church of Rome to be the whore of 
Babylon. The clergy scrupulously returned insult for 
insult, calling them, in turn, the gates of hell and 
Satan's concubines. But while the two religions equally 
abused each other, there was this immense difference 
between their invectives, that the clergy carried those 
with which they overwhelmed the Protestants to the foot 
of the throne, and were there allowed to denounce as 
blasphemous, the injurious language employed by the 
pastors in their books. There was yet another very 
important difference. The clergy supplied the king with 
money which he received from them as a gift. The 
court negotiated with them as a public body, holding 



24 DISPARITY OF POWER 

the first rank in the commonwealth, for what was called 
the gratuity, when the necessities of the crown required 
such aid ; while the Protestants, on the other hand, 
required grants of money from the crown for the sup- 
port of their ministers, and the expenses of their syno- 
dical meetings. Every such meeting was followed by a 
petition for such assistance, whereas, when the clergy 
met, they granted the state what was held to be a favour. 
No wonder that in such circumstances, the latter never 
met without gaining advantages at the expense of the 
former, and that ever} 7 successive synod, on the con- 
trary, experienced fresh tokens of disfavour from the 
court. If, turning to the ecclesiastical records, we 
examine the long series of laws which, with an ever- 
increasing severity towards the Calvinists, the clergy 
purchased from the court at the stated meetings they 
held every fifth year, we shall perceive that they 
observed some moderation in their demands, while the 
Calvinists continued to be feared, but tended more and 
more to open persecution, in proportion as these became 
peaceful citizens. Thus it will be seen how naturally, 
as the financial difficulties of the government increased, 
it bargained away to the clergy, in detail, the repeal, 
one after another, of all the privileges that could pos- 
sibly be taken from the Protestants without being 
guilty of crying injustice ; that what was bestowed in 
return for money, was asked in the name of religion ; 
and that this base resource was taken advantage of, 
until the economical administration of Colbert, when all 
things turned in favour of the Protestants. 

To all this we must add, that the consideration en- 
joyed by the two clergies was very unequal. Possessing 
neither ecclesiastical dignities nor rich benefices, the 
Calvinist clergy had nothing to distinguish them but 



BETWEEN THE PAPISTS AND PROTESTANTS. 25 

their religious and learned men. There were piety and 
learning on the one side, and on the other you could 
find piety and learning too, but in addition to these, 
immense wealth, high birth, the privilege of educating 
the royal princes, the favours of the court, and the 
habits acquired in the discharge of important offices. 

In such a state of things, great indeed must have 
been the disparity of strength between the parties, not- 
withstanding which disparity, when Louis the XlVth 
took the government into his own hands, there com- 
menced a regular contest between the entire body of 
the Roman Catholic clergy on the one hand, and of the 
Protestants on the other, about the appointment of 
commissioners for repairing the infractions of the Edict. 
The former of these considered it their chief business 
carefully to watch the proceedings of this commission 
throughout the provinces, and to direct all its decisions 
according to their own interests, or, if you will, as was 
most for the advantage of religion. Yet this critical 
position of affairs was not followed for more than six- 
teen years, with the results that might have been 
anticipated, and the dangerous nature of which Maza- 
rin had prognosticated on his death-bed. 

These details will suffice to account for the motives 
which, during the early period of Louis the XlVth's 
administration in so far as it affected the Protestants, 
led to the appearance of so many successive edicts, 
orders in council, and declarations, all tending to 
restrain the privileges they then enjoyed, without our 
being led to conclude from any consistency to be ob- 
served in these laws, that they proceeded from a pre- , 
concerted design for the utter ruin of the sect. We 
can trace them only to the general spirit of those times ; 
to the zeal of the Roman Catholic clergy in petitioning 



26 RELAPSED AND APOSTATES. 

every five years for new advantages in addition to those 
they had already obtained ; to the vigilance of an active 
administration, which in some measure consulted the 
popular spirit, and confined the Protestants within the 
narrowest limits consistent with justice and right feel- 
ing. These are the very words of Louis XIV. "We 
are aware likewise that the tedious and dangerous ill- 
ness of the Queen, gave the court a melancholy air, 
and augmented the influence of religion, and of the 
clergy, by making a kind of rueful piety fashionable. 

Yet the principles which still predominated during 
those times of apparent sanctity and vigilant adminis- 
tration, left room for the impartiality for which Louis 
the XlVth applauds himself in his Memoirs, and in 
proof of this we might adduce many examples. One 
declaration we regard as particularly deserving of no- 
tice, seeing that after the lapse of eighteen years, it was 
strangely abused by the zeal for conversions; and con- 
tinuing to be more and more perverted from year to 
year, was employed at last to sanction the premature 
demolition of all the Protestant churches, and to effect, 
if possible, the abolition of the very name of the Pre- 
tended Reformed in France. Passed with the simple 
view of maintaining a wise police between the two re- 
ligions, in proposing it to the king, the clergy neither 
suggested the commencement of a persecution nor 
aught that could have such a tendency. The law to 
which we refer is that of 1663, against the Relapsed. 
This terra, borrowed from a latin word signifying, to 
fall back, means those, in fact, who fall back into heresy 
after having abjured it. Of all sins this was the least 
pardonable in the eyes of zealous Roman Catholics, and 
in their apprehension, the name involved the utmost 
infamy. It was recollected as one of those employed 



BAYLE AND ABLANCOURT. 27 

to excite the populace to rise against Henry the IVth. 
One article of the edict seemed rather favourable to this 
culpable fickleness, but its object being the annulling 
of conversions extorted from Protestants during the 
civil wars, it was not supposed, at the date of the edict, 
to involve either the asking or granting of a favour. 

Men who like Henry IV. himself on the night of 
the St. Bartholomew massacre, had been threatened 
with the words la mort ou la messe* were clearly en- 
titled to retract such abjurations. This, then, being the 
nineteenth Article of the edict, contained only a proper 
disavowal of such violent proceedings and might be re- 
garded, so to speak, as an expiation of that fatal night, 
a night of which it was impossible to go too far in 
blotting out the memory. But, in the sequel, some 
Protestants made an abuse of this facility. Some un- 
quiet spirits floated between the two religions, such for 
example at the time at which we speak, was the celebrated 
Bayle who though as yet but a youth, was tormented 
by the scepticism on which he based the philosophy of 
his riper years. Others from a regard to their own 
temporal interests, matrimonial or hereditary, pretended 
to be converts, and having reaped the fruits of their 
artifice, threw off their disguise, and returned to their 
former faith. Others, in fine, after having left it from 
seduction or weakness, were persuaded to return, or 
made it a point of honour to do so ; and if we would 
diminish the horror men feel for this fault by illustrious 
examples, we may mention that such at that time was 
Ablancourt, a writer to be ranked with those who have 
done most to give the French language its distinguish- 
ing precision and purity. The Calvinists had a horror for 

* Death or the Mass ? 
C 2 



28 MODERATION OF RICHELIEU, 

this fickleness, and as a means of preventing it, they 
resolved not to admit Roman Catholics to communion, 
until they had first undergone a period of probation, 
varying in length according to circumstances. Several 
of the bishops, we understand, established like rules in 
their respective dioceses, and in these, Calvinists were 
not admitted to make a public abjuration until they had 
given a long proof of their sincerity. Perhaps the 
right course to have followed in order to the putting 
down of an abuse held in equal abhorrence on both 
sides, was for each party to imitate this severitv and to 
introduce, generally, such rules as the rigid piety of 
those bishops must have suggested. Other ecclesias- 
tics, however, thought it a surer way to call the secular 
arm to their aid, and to implore the government 
severely to punish the relapsed. For long they vainly 
solicited a law to this effect. The first attempts of the 
kind were made in 163 8, by the bishops of Languedoc. 
The Cardinal de Richelieu did not confirm the pro- 
visional ordinances which those bishops had obtained 
from the intendant, whether because Richelieu consi- 
dered the abuses but a slight evil compared with the 
inestimable good involved in the liberty of conscience 
to which they were attached ; an advantage he was so 
jealous of protecting that he even regulated the forms 
according to which a Roman Catholic might abjure his 
religion and embrace Calvinism ; or because, having 
been born only twelve years after the St. Bartholomew 
massacre, the recollection of the troubles caused by 
forced conversions, still fresh at the time of his ad- 
ministration, and the horror with which they had 
affected every right-thinking mind, gave a peculiar 
sanctity in his regard to a law which appeared likely to 
proscribe them for ever. 



AND OF MAZARIN. 29 

This request was renewed by the assembly of the 
clergy in 1660, but while Mazarin lived, it was more 
than they could obtain. Yet it would seem that the 
death of that statesman, interrupted the traditional 
thread of this prudent policy. We shall see here, in 
more than one instance, what may often be observed 
in governments subject to an individual chief, that the 
death of a public minister who has been formed in the 
course of long habits of business, and whose experi- 
ence has been nurtured in the school of his predecessors, 
snaps the continuity of the most valuable traditions, and 
of the sagest maxims. The assembly of the clergy 
profited by the change of administration. They prompt- 
ly brought forward a provisional ordinance of the inten- 
dant of Rochelle ; solicited its confirmation, and prayed 
that from being a particular ordinance, it might pass 
into a general law ; at the same time confounding the 
relapsed with the apostates, and thus representing the 
former in much more odious colours than before. Let 
us mark how they obtained this law, the passing of 
which was followed by consequences so important and 
extraordinary. 

It is thus mentioned by Louis XlVth, in his Me- 
moirs : — ' Even to the smallest matters everything was 
important by which France might learn the spirit of my 
reign. I was hurt at the manner in which people had 
been accustomed to bargain with their prince, or rather 
with the minister, always attaching conditions to what 
they ought to have expected from my sense of justice 
or good nature. The assembly, after a considerable de- 
lay in Paris, as usual deferred its dissolution even after 
I had intimated my desire that they should separate, 
waiting until they should obtain certain edicts which 
they had urgently petitioned for. I made them aware 



30 FIRST IMPORTANT BLOW 

that such was not the mode of procedure by which 
people might expect to obtain what they desired at 
my hands. They dissolved the assembly and then 
only did they obtain the edicts they had sought.' 
The youthful monarch, satisfied with this conduct 
on the part of a body which ranked first in the king- 
dom, rewarded their ready obedience by granting 
himself, what they had solicited in vain from Richelieu 
and Mazarin ; and the secretary for the general affairs 
of the Reformed, with regard to whose character we 
have quoted the opinion of the king himself, yielded, 
in so far as he was concerned, without a single remon- 
strance, and without any foresight of future conse- 
quences. The new law limited the application of the 
celebrated 19th Article above mentioned, to abjurations 
which had preceded the passing of the edict : by asso- 
ciating the relapsed with apostates, it aimed at subject- 
ing them to all the horrors attached to profanation and 
sacrilege ; it enjoined that they should be prosecuted 
with all the rigour of the ordinances, without specifying 
what meaning was to be attached to the words rigour of 
the ordinances, when applied to an offence never before 
prosecuted as a crime. 

So general was the animosity felt towards the Protes- 
tants, that at the greater number of courts of justice, 
criminal prosecutions were immediately commenced 
against persons who could be charged with having been 
guilty of this offence previous to the appearance of the 
declaration against it. But the privy council had a 
sufficient regard for justice to lose no time in interpret- 
ing its own law, and forbade any retrospective effect 
being given to it. It then became necessary to define 
the term rigour of the ordinances, and it was resolved 
that the relapsed should be sentenced to perpetual 



AT THE EDICT OF NANTES. 31 

banishment. So little did men dream now of the system 
of persecution introduced by the revolution that took 
place twenty years after this. The severest prohi- 
bitions from leaving the kingdom were then employed 
to compel persons to remain in it, from whom abjura- 
tions of the reformed faith were first extorted by ex- 
treme rigours, and whom it was next hoped to retain 
in the true religion by the terror of the new penalties 
imposed on the relapsed.* 

Thus it was that a feeble blow aimed at the Edict of 
Nantes, — so feeble, indeed, that it hardly seemed to 
encroach on its literal meaning, — by and by led almost 
alone to its revocation. From an inconsiderate desire 
of correcting a minor evil, there issued forth, before 
long, a formidable revolution. The minor evil had 
been endured by the greatest ministers the French 
monarchy has ever seen ; yet all the sagacity of man 
must have failed to anticipate from a hardly perceptible 
unsettlement of the Edict of Nantes, the near and un- 
avoidable destruction of that great measure. 

* The first of these declarations seems to have been passed in April 
1663, that imposing the pain of banishment in Jnne 1665, while by 
a third, dated 13th of March 1679, the amende honorable and confis- 
cation of goods are added as penalties, v. Reciieil des Edits, Paris, 
1714.— Ed. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Manoeuvres of the Papacy. — First alarms and emigration 
of the Reformed. — Second period of Louis the XIVtKs 
administration with respect to that body. — Talents and 
character of Colbert. — His steady protection of the 
Reformed, and high appreciation of their value as citi- 
zens. — Suppression of the Chambers of the Edict. — 
Reversal of the late Anti-protestant laws obtained by the 
Papal clergy. — Law against Emigrations. — Its compa- 
rative innoxiousness at first. 

In attempting to push their advantages too far, the 
Roman Catholic clergy lost much of what they had 
already obtained. Their first step, according to certain 
Protestant authors, was to obtain a judgment on peti- 
tion in some particular cases. Having gained this 
point, they could more easily get it confirmed by a con- 
tradictory judgment, and from that went on to obtain a 
general judgment, substantially the same as the pre- 
ceding. At length, when a favourable opportunity 
occurred, they had limited and local decisions changed 
into general declaratory laws. One such law which 
they obtained in 1666, proves what is here asserted. 
The preamble runs thus : ' that in answer to a petition 
from the clergy, it has been agreed to promulgate, by a 
general law, the judgments pronounced in individual 
cases, so as to prevent lawsuits among persons who may 



FIRST PROTESTANT EMIGRATIONS. 33 

be ignorant of extant decisions, and thus to promote 
peace among subjects of the two religions. ' Some of 
those decisions had been very impartial, but as the 
leaning of the greater number was in favour of the 
dominant religion, the general statute in which they 
were merged, and which gave the force of law to all the 
arbitrary decisions that had been pronounced throughout 
the provinces, introduced exorbitant restrictions into 
many of the articles of the Edict of Nantes. The Pro- 
testants began to fear that their utter ruin was pro- 
jected. Many left France and settled in the Nether- 
lands ; and hence the first of the migrations, so often 
renewed in the course of the following hundred years. 
Meanwhile the Assemblies of all the provinces sent 
deputations to the king, and the deputies, with no less 
truth and force than insinuation and address, laid before 
him the various encroachments committed on the Edict 
of Nantes. The king replied with expressions of great 
benignity ; and here commences the second period of 
the administration of Louis XIV. as it regarded the 
Reformed. 

This year, 1667, is the grand epoch of the modern 
administration of France ; and requiring, as I do, irre- 
fragable testimonies, so as not to leave a shadow of 
doubt on the views I have undertaken to establish, I 
here transcribe the very words of the President Hain- 
ault :— ' This year, 1667, was rendered memorable as 
that from which date all the wise regulations of Louis 
the XIV's reign. M. Colbert carried his views beyond 
the finances which he placed on a new footing, so that 
the departments of justice, commerce, the marine, the 
police, all, in fact, bore traces of the methodical spirit 
which formed that minister's chief characteristic, and of 
his superior views on all the departments of the govern- 
c 5 



34 COLBERT STEADILY PATRONISES 

merit. He created a board for discussing all such mat- 
ters, and from that there issued the manv good rules 
and ordinances, now forming the firmest foundations of 
our government.' It must be regarded as greatly in 
favour of the Protestants, that this memorable year was 
that, likewise, on which Louis XIV. returned towards 
them. Colbert was their protector, and yet no one will 
charge that minister with having had too easy or too 
indulgent a temper. The masters of requests feared to 
become intendants under so vigilant and firm a minis- 
ter. In remodelling the Finance department, his first 
object was to establish a court of justice. At meetings 
of the privy council he argued almost invariably on the 
severe side, and I cannot discover that he was ever 
charged with tendering an advice which could be deemed 
likely to weaken the authority of the crown. In giving 
audiences he had so repulsive an address, that a surly 
refusal seemed ever painted in the wrinkles of his brow. 
Yet this very M. Colbert was the steady friend of the 
Reformed ; he ever warmly defended the Edict oi 
Nantes, and the Protestants were attacked only upon 
the decline of his influence in the cabinet. Devoted to 
whatever was favourable to the wealth and prosperity of 
the kingdom, he felt how much forbearance was called 
for in dealing with the faith professed by merchants of 
the highest credit, by the most industrious manufactu- 
rers, and by nearly the whole inhabitants of our sea 
coast. He willingly employed Protestants in the finance 
department, where he prided himself on then* probity 
and modesty, but he was not a blind protector, and it 
was during their enjoyment of the benefits of his admin- 
istration, that what, in the parliaments of Paris and 
Rouen, were called the Chambers of the Edict, were sup- 
pressed, as interfering with the ordinary course of justice. 



THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS, 35 

The jurisdiction of those Chambers while so united 
with the two parliaments, by the Edict of Nantes, com- 
prised all cases in which the Reformed were parties, and 
yet they had each but one protestant judge, being no 
more than the other chambers of the same parliaments 
had ; so that their separate jurisdiction might be reck- 
oned as useless, besides that abuses had crept into it, 
similar to those which the lapse of time and the public 
disorders had suffered to grow up in the other chambers. 
Their suppression formed part of the general system of 
reform in the administration : the Protestants lost 
nothing by it, and the right which they retained of chal- 
lenging two judges in civil, and three in criminal suits, 
gave them ample compensation. 

They who pretend that the ministry of Louis XIV. 
followed the same plan throughout with regard to the 
Reformed ; that it undermined and destroyed their pri- 
vileges, one by one ; that there was a design laid for 
their destruction at the commencement of his reign, and 
that in carrying this secret project into effect, the 
branches were severally attacked before the axe was 
applied to the trunk, would have us believe that the 
suppression of these two chambers of the Edict was one 
of the progressive blows aimed at their privileges, accor- 
ding to the plan which they pretend the court had pre- 
scribed to itself. But it may be easily proved that this 
was no instance of severity peculiar to them. The 
most respected bodies among the Roman Catholic clergy 
experienced, at this time, the restriction of privileges, 
of which they were in full possession, but which inter- 
fered with the regular course of justice. The faculty 
of theology lost the right of committimus, a right pre- 
cisely of the same kind with that granted to the Protes- 
tants bv the institution of the chambers of the edict. It 



36 REASONS FOR THE SUPPRESSION 

was resolved that the king should be petitioned to pre- 
serve it, and a deputation accordingly was sent to the 
court. ' Bossuet,' says the author of his life, ' was 
placed at its head, and delivered himself with the utmost 
eloquence, but all he had in return was admiration, for 
he failed completely in obtaining what he came to ask 
for/ 

Thus it was in the course of a general reform in the 
department of justice, not as a special act of rigour 
towards the protestants, that the government suppressed 
the chambers of the Edict. The audience which was 
granted on the occasion to the most eloquent of their 
ministers, fared not only no worse, but to say the truth, 
much better than that given to Bossuet. The king 
stated in his reply that he had never been given to un- 
derstand that the Reformed would suffer from the sup- 
pression of the chambers of the edict, but only that it 
was a measure necessary to the better administration of 
justice ; that he had taken every precaution to prevent 
their suffering from the change ; that he was averse to 
sending their causes to be decided by the great cham- 
bers where there were too many eeclesiastical council- 
lors, or to suppress the chambres mi-parties * of the par- 
liaments of Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Grenoble, as had 
been proposed to him, because he thought they required 
those chambers. 

The Protestants preserved their real privileges, and 
soon after the audience, the Declaration against them 
obtained by the last Assembly of the Clergy was repeal- 
ed, together with all the decisions in the law courts on 
which it rested. The law by which it was superseded 
secured for them reparation for the wrongs they had 

* Courts of justice in which there were judges belonging to both 
religions. — Ed. 



OF THE CHAMBERS OF THE EDICT, 37 

suffered, their discipline was re-established, their privi- 
leges were confirmed, all the honours of the dominant 
religion w^ere scrupulously secured to the Roman Catho- 
lic religion, and the general police of the kingdom was 
wisely maintained.* 

Two months later there appeared the famous edict 
for putting a stop to the emigrations. 

This is not the place to inquire what the rights of 
freedom in France have been from the earliest times. 
We must go back to ages in which a large proportion 
of the inhabitants was sunk in slavery in order to dis- 
cover any limitation of a Frenchman's right to choose 
for himself a home, and even a country, wherever he 
pleased. The restriction w T hen it existed, formed part 
of that oppressive system of feudal servitude from which 
Frenchmen in general had long been emancipated. From 
that period we must descend to the times when the 
kings of France had to oppose the publication of cru- 
sades, and to defend themselves and the Gallican church 
against the enterprises of the Popes. Some of the 
ordinances of that era were intended to deliver us from 
a foreign yoke. But for a long period all vestiges had 
disappeared of any restriction on that natural inclination 
which carries the French over the world, and leads them 
every where to expect the favours of fortune. It is 
true, indeed, that in 1629, under Cardinal Richelieu, 
there appeared a very rigorous code, comprising above 
five hundred clauses, one of which prohibits any man 
holding a public office from absenting himself without 
leave, and all other subjects from leaving the country 
without previously intimating their intentions to the 
magistrates, and obtaining a certificate of their having 

* v. App. No. I. 



38 LAW AGAINST EMIGRATION, 

given such intimation. This was less a prohibition 
against going out of the kingdom than a wise measure 
of police, adopted as a check on the inconveniences that 
might arise from unlimited license in this respect. 

Another clause bore more positively on sea-faring 
people, and all kinds of artizans connected w T ith the 
marine. It forbade their going out of port or haven 
without leave. But w T e all know that as a whole, it 
forms a general code of tyranny, It proscribes all meet- 
ings whatever ; it disarms the nation ; it interdicts all 
communication with foreign ambassadors ; it makes a 
duty of passive obedience. The keeper of the seals, 
Michel de Marillac, was its author. The parliament 
refused to verify this terrible ordinance, and in spite of 
the solemnity of a bed of justice, * it continued to encoun- 
ter every kind of opposition that the people could show. 
In proportion as the Cardinal's personal influence in- 
creased, he found he could dispense with appeals to this 
idle semblance of laws ; and the disgrace of Marillac, the 
punishment of the Marshall, and the exile of the keeper of 
the seals, finally annihilated the credit of those who re- 
tained their names. This ordinance accordingly fell into 
desuetude ; no court of law ever admitted it as an autho- 
rity, and it is known in French jurisprudence only under 
the ridiculous name of the CodeMichault. Thus doubt- 
less must we account for the occurrence in the Edict 
obtained by M. Colbert against the emigrations, of the 
vague expression of the old ordinances, without naming 
one such ordinance for the purpose of either renewing 
or confirming it. 

* A lit de justice, literally ' bed of justice,' was an extraordinarv 
eouncil at which the king presided, and overbore all opposition from 
the parliaments and other courts by the sheer weight of his absolute 
authority. — Ed. 



HARMLESS AT ITS ORIGIN. 39 

By that edict, the king prohibits his subjects from 
leaving the country with the view of establishing them- 
selves in foreign lands, by marriage, by acquiring real 
property, or by transporting their families and goods 
without meaning to return ; and this under pain of con- 
fiscation of body and goods, but without comprising in 
this prohibition, men called out of France by having 
business to transact with foreigners, provided they do not 
domesticate themselves abroad by marriage or otherwise. 

Thus this edict did not even make a passport neces- 
sary in order to leave the kingdom. None of the king's 
subjects could be stopped on the frontier ; no offence 
being committed until he had established himself 
abroad. In all this there was really no question mooted 
respecting the protestants. 

It was through the declaratory laws by which inter- 
pretations were given to it, that it was afterwards 
pointed against them. But granting that from the first 
it was intended to affect them, although any express 
mention of them was purposely avoided, we must look 
to the general course pursued by the government in 
those equitable times. Previous to the enactment of this 
prohibition to emigrate, Frenchmen who had been des- 
poiled of their rights, had those rights restored, and 
were replaced in the general rank of citizens. In one 
word, the government began by giving them a country 
at home before it prohibited them from looking out for 
one abroad. 

It will be seen that the legislation against emigra- 
tions exactly resembles in its progress that adopted 
against the relapsed. By perpetuating itself into con- 
junctures altogether different from those in which it 
commenced, it lost its original equity, and became 
supremely unjust. 



40 INCIPIENT PERSECUTION. 

By what ruthless severity, by what abuse of power, by 
what strange confounding of all principles, was this 
edict enforced, after the repeal of all those laws to which 
alone it owed its character of perfect fairness ? 

Thus was it that by measures wise in themselves, and 
in accord with the strictest justice, by this declaration 
against the relapsed, the first rigour of which we may 
be thought to have justified, on the ground of the cir- 
cumstances which led to it, and by the edict against the 
emigrations which merely imposed the duties of citizen- 
ship on men who had just recovered the rights of that 
position, Louis the XIV. in the course of a few years, 
was led on, without himself suspecting it, to give his 
sanction to the most violent persecution that ever existed 
in any country. 









CHAPTER V. 

Parallel between Oliver Cromwell and Mme. de Mainte- 
non. — Mme. de Montespan advised to carry her am- 
bition beyond being the Kings mistress. — The project 
of becoming the King's wife taken up by Mme. de 
Maintenon, who owes her success in it to the King's 
Jesuit confessor, La Chaise. — Moderation of the King's 
sentiments proved by Mme. de Maintenon' s letters. 

Before entering on the third period of Louis the 
XlVth's administration as it respected the Protestants, 
we beg to make a remark so singular, that it might be 
supposed to be meant for a jest, but really interesting, 
because just. The time of which we treat is marked 
by two rare instances of successful ambition, between 
which a singular agreement may be discovered, though 
at first sight, they do not seem to offer a single point 
for comparison. Cromwell, in the early period of the 
civil war to which he owed his elevation, perceived 
afar, as with an eagle's glance, an object beyond the 
ken of a less penetrating intelligence, and which a 
more ordinary mind w T ould have regarded as beyond his 
grasp. He saw a course lie open to any man of suf- 
ficient talent and courage who might desire to make 
himself master of England. But as the obscurity of his 
birth, and, though his elevation was rapid, the inade- 
quate advance of his fortunes at the time, did not admit 
of his aiming as yet so high, he made the suggestion to 






42 MME. DE MAINTENON'S COUNSEL 

a more considerable person. c My Lord/ said he, f if 
you would but attach yourself to honest people, you 
would find yourself at the head of an army which might 
dictate the law to both King and Parliament/ The 
Earl of Manchester, to whom he made this suggestion, 
not having sufficient ambition or force of character to 
adopt it, and circumstances having favoured Cromwell 
himself, he did for his own proper greatness, what 
he had before suggested to another. Now here is the 
point of my comparison. No sooner did Mme. de 
Maintenon become acquainted with Louis the XlVth, 
than she could perceive that gallantry and devotion held 
equal sway in that prince's heart; and she advised 
Mme. de Montespan to put both these springs in move- 
ment, in order by a skilful combination of the two sen- 
timents, to secure for herself an absolute and immovable 
influence. She was far from supposing that so great a 
personage could condescend to look on herself. Mme. 
de Montespan could not long maintain such a line of 
conduct. ' My counsels are listened to/ Mme. de 
Maintenon writes to her (spiritual) director, * some- 
times they are approved ; sometimes they give offence ; 
but they are never adopted, and this is always fol- 
lowed by repentance/ And in another letter to the 
same director, she says : ( I saw the King yesterday, 
and spoke to him as a Christian, and as a true friend of 
Mme. de Montespan/ This led one of the wittiest 
women of that time, and one who was likely to be well 
informed, to say : ' If Mme. de Montespan could but 
dispense with returning to her old ways, she might 
carry her authority and her greatness beyond the clouds, 
but she must contrive to put herself in a condition to be 
loved all the year round without scruple/ l Very 
pleasant this/ adds Mme. de Sevigne, ' to find her own 



TO MM£. DE MONTESPAN. 43 

interests and good policy agree so well with Christianity, 
and that the advice of her friends is but that of M. 
Bossuet.' By the vague expression ' her friends,' she 
here means Mme. de Maintenon, as may easily be seen 
from what goes before, and what follows. Circum- 
stances, in course of time, happening to favour that 
clever woman, she adopted the part which the other 
abandoned, and led the King from love to devotion, 
that she might lead him from devotion to love. She 
gave him over to the guidance of a confessor and that 
confessor conducted her to a throne. Mme. de Main- 
tenon had been a Calvinist,* and we shall see ere long 
how this Esther winked at the ruin of her brethren in- 
stead of doing her best to save them. She herself in- 
forms us what the king's feelings were with respect to 
them before this devotional humour had made much 
progress, expressing herself as we shall see in a letter 
addressed to her brother, dated Oct. 1, 1672. This 
letter, I believe, like many more of the same collection, 
is misdated, but the accuracy of the dates does not 
affect its substance. ' Complaints reach me respecting 
you which do you no honour. You maltreat the 
Huguenots. You seek for the means and hunt after 
occasions for doing so ; this is not to act like a man of 
quality. Have compassion for people who are unfor- 
tunate rather than guilty. They are still possessed with 
errors which we ourselves once followed, and from 
which violence never could have detached us. Henry 
the IVth professed that religion, and many other great 
princes have professed it. Do not then molest them. 

* De Rnlhiere employs indiscriminately the terms Protestants, Re- 
formed, Calvinists, Huguenots, &c. for the French Reformed as they 
called themselves, and Pretended Reformed as they were called in 
law. — Ed. For Mme. Maintenon' s early history, see Note B. 



44 LOUIS Xiv's MODERATION. 

We ought to influence others by gentleness and by 
charity. Jesus Christ has set us the example ; and 
such, also, is the intention of the King. Your part is 
to make all observe the bounds of subordination ; it 
belongs to the bishops and to the parish priests to con- 
vert people by teaching and good example. Neither 
God nor the king has committed the keeping of souls to 
you. Sanctify your own, and be severe only to 
yourself. 5 

What we would here remark is, not the absurdity of 
speaking of persecution as not worthy of a man of 
quality, or the vanity everywhere [discoverable in 
Madame de Main tenon when she can introduce the 
name of D'Aubigne, but that this letter is a precious 
monument of the real sentiments of Louis the XlVth. 
We have it from a woman, the sole study of whose life 
was to penetrate into that prince's mind and character. 
We shall soon perceive the same sentiments proceeding 
directly frorm the King ; but let us first quote one other 
testimony 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Reformed abandoned by party leaders on ceasing to 
form a political body. — Singular expressions employed 
by Henry IV, in the Edict of Nantes. — Richelieu's 
policy, and the vast designs imputed to him. — Advan- 
tage taken of opinions and circumstances to depress the 
Reformed. — Arnauld and Bossuet publish against them. 
Turenne's conversion. — Hopes of the conversion of Eng- 
land. — The papacy employs the most immoral agents. — 
Death of the Queen Mother and its consequences. — 
Remorse makes the King turn his thoughts to the con- 
version of the Reformed. 

No sooner did the Reformed resolve to detach them- 
selves, as a religious body, from the factions of the 
great, than, as we remarked, these, in their turn, aban- 
doned the interests of the reformed. One after another 
they were in haste to renounce a creed which did not 
cease to be regarded with very general dislike, and could 
no longer minister to any man's ambition. These con- 
versions may be dated from the reign of Henry the 
IVth. It was amid fires kindled for the destruction of 
those that professed it, that (what was called) heresy, 
acquired consistency in France, and even the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew augmented the numbers of the 
Huguenots ; but, ere long, the dominant religion re- 
gained much of its lost ground, in the midst of toleration 



46 HOPES OF THE PAPACY 

and peace. Hardly was Henry the IVth seated on the 
throne, when the royal example, ever so influential in 
France, was followed by a considerable number of per- 
sons at court. His confessor, the Jesuit Coton, shared 
the distinction of convert-maker with the celebrated 
Perron, the most eloquent man of his day ; but such 
apostles were not adapted to the common class of people, 
and their mission went no farther than the consciences 
to be found at court. Yet one expression had been in- 
serted in the edict of Nantes, which though brief, 
sufficed to show that the hope of the general conver- 
sion of the kingdom, was cherished by the government 
and that it reserved for itself so favourable an opportu- 
nity of one day revoking the edict. Let us mark the 
very words of Henry IV. : — ' Now that it hath pleased 
God to give us a commencement of the felicity of some 
better repose, we think we cannot employ it better 
than by endeavouring to promote what concerns the 
glory of his great name, and to provide that He shall 
receive the worship and the prayers of all our subjects, 
and though he has not been pleased as yet to permit 
that this shall be done in one manner, at least that it 
be done with one intention.' From that time forward, 
the Roman Catholic clergy, by permission from the 
pope, set apart 30,000 francs a-year from the annual 
income of the church, as a fund for indemnifying Re- 
formed pastors who might lose their means of subsist- 
ence by changing their creed ; but no pastor being 
found to accept this bounty, it was distributed among 
the more easily persuadable laity. When Cardinal 
Richelieu, following the principles of the soundest good 
policy, granted the Edict of Grace, in favour of the 
Reformed, he failed not on the other hand, to agree to 
whatever the Roman purple could reasonably require, 



NEVER EXTINGUISHED. 47 

by not losing sight of the general conversion of the 
kingdom, or ceasing to contemplate it as an object one 
day to be attained. The edict itself proves this, and 
it was during his ministry that there was instituted in 
France, the congregation called Missionaries, *from 
having commenced with sending missions from villiage 
to village ; and Lazarists, from its head quarters being 
established in a house usurped from the order of St. 
Lazarus. Among other objects, it took up the in- 
struction of the people by catechising. Though Richelieu 
complained of the excessive multiplication of the reli- 
gious orders, he authorised in all the Provinces the 
establishment of hospitals of capucins and recollets, 
designed for this grand enterprise. We ought like- 
wise to recollect that he was at pains to discover cer- 
tain points on which the two creeds might be re-united. 
Ambitious of all kinds of success, and accustomed in 
early life to carry off the palm in theology, he drew up 
a confession of faith, which he flattered himself would 
have found admission into a general Synod. But it 
must also be borne in mind, that during his administra- 
tion, or as one might almost say, his reign, the project 
was mooted of having a Patriarch for France, and 
separating that country from Rome. But these may be 
ranked among the vast and chimerical projects some- 
times conceived by men of an over-active and restless 
genius, and which vanish the instant these attempt to 
execute them, or even to submit them to serious de- 
liberation. More than one such conception has been 
ascribed to that great man ; almost all whose ideas, be- 
fore he realized them, were characterised by a kind of 
gigantic grandeur. In short, whatever may have been 
his designs for comprising the whole of Faance in one 
national church, he ever acted on the most moderate 



48 NUMEROUS DESERTIONS 

principles in his endeavours to convert the Calvinists, 
and these principles he inculcated on the King. ■ All 
sovereigns,' said he, ' are morally bound to see to the 
conversion of such of their subjects as have strayed from 
the way of salvation, bat inasmuch as man is a rational 
being, princes may be regarded as having acquitted 
themselves of their obligations, if they employ all 
rational means for accomplishing this object, and pru- 
dence does not authorize the use of such hazardous 
means as might root up the good seed in attempting to 
remove the tares, it being difficult to eradicate these by 
other than gentle methods.' 

We have remarked that it was under his administra- 
tion that the government first systematically excluded 
the Reformed from public favours, except in the case 
of the most signal services. This policy had now been 
followed for above forty years with the greatest advan- 
tage to the Roman Catholic Church. The most power- 
ful families in the kingdom, almost all indeed above the 
rank of the people, daily returned to the favoured re- 
ligion. Whether then, it was, that a general plan was 
adopted for depressing, with the view of finally extin- 
guishing, the Reformed, by measures too mild to fur- 
nish grounds for complaint, or rather, and as we be- 
lieve, that the force of opinions, circumstances, and 
manners, held the place of plan and system, this de- 
pression became daily more sensible, and past success 
traced out a sure line of procedure for the future.* 
The creed of the prince gradually became that of the 
nobility ; yet in a nation like France, where personal 
honour is the sole basis of public morality, and where 

* The truth seems to be that from first to last, as well as at last. 
advantage was taken, systematically, of the force of opinions, circum- 
stances and manners then, as at the present day. — Ed. 



FROM THE PROTESTANT CAUSE. 49 

this honour permits no one to yield unless to persuasion 
and to the dictates of conscience, of course it was the 
sermons, the good books, and the controversial dis- 
cussions, which had all the glory of this revolution. 
The zeal of the Roman apostolate was nourished by 
this success. Those who passed for shining lights among 
the clergy, in spite of the diversity of their opinions, 
and their consequent disputes and mutual hatred, 
rivalled each other in the dedication of their talents to 
what was called the demonstration of the truths of the 
Gospel, and even formed themselves into an association 
for promoting that object. All bore on the same point. 
A kind of truce even was signed between Port Royal 
and the Jesuits ; and during this cessation of hostilities 
the famous Arnauld turned his arms against the common 
enemy, and in refutation of the Calvinists, published 
his great work — On the perpetuity of the faith. Actuated 
by holy rivalry, Bossuet composed a work of no less 
celebrity, his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catho- 
lic Church. This last work, it was said, enlightened 
Turenne, and that great man's conversion made an im- 
mense breach in the party he abandoned.* 

In one word, zeal for conversion became the piety 
of the day, and its fervour went even beyond the boun- 
daries of France. The fallacious hope was entertained 
of seeing all England return to the Roman Catholic 
faith. Charles II. contemplated such a general con- 
version of his kingdom, and France took care to pro- 
vide him with a mistress capable of keeping him true 
to such pious sentiments, and to whom he was in- 
debted for the advantage of dying in the arms of a Roman 
Catholic priest. His successor on the throne of Eng- 

* Vide Note A. 



50 THE KING'S FITS OF REMORSE. 

land was not afraid openly to re-unite himself to the 
Roman Catholic Church. Such projects of conversion 
entered into the affairs alike of gallantry and of politics ; 
mistresses converted their paramours ; and missions in 
all parts of the world were so much in vogue, that a 
young Abbe, remarkable for his personal attractions 
and his sprightly wit, and whom in old age our con- 
temporaries have seen dressed in female attire, such as 
he wore during the disorders of his younger days, asked 
and obtained leave to go as a missionary to the kingdom 
of Siam. This was the man of whom the Abbe 
Dangeau used to say, * No sooner had I demonstrated 
the existence of a God, than he believed in the baptism 
of bells/ 

On the death of the Queen mother,* the court was 
less engrossed with this proselytism than with gal- 
lantries, festivities, wars, and victories. Yet it ap- 
plauded the success of what was considered the Divine 
word ; and to encourage this success, did not cease in 
the king's eyes to be one of the duties of government. 
Religious feelings were deeply rooted in his heart, and 
in the intervals of dissipation and scrupulosity, when 
passing from vice to remorse, and from remorse to vice 
again, he thought he might compensate for his disor- 
ders, and win more decided favour from heaven, by 
devoting himself more fervently to these conversions. 
Louis XIV, worthy as he was to have the age in which 
he lived called after him, yielded on this occasion to the 
spirit of that age ; and in the course of (what were 
thought) frequent returns to God, he projected the 
conversion of the Huguenots, just as three centuries 
earlier, in the days of Philip Augustus and St. Louis, 

* Anne of Austria, widow of Louis XIII. died January 20, 1666. 



FALSIFICATION OF HIS MEMOIRS. 51 

he would have sought to expiate his sins by setting out 
to the conquest of the Holy Land. 

The Memoirs he has left us, extend to the first ten 
years only of his government; they close with the 
development of his policy with respect to the Protes- 
tants ; and here we must observe that after entirely 
omitting any mention of them in speaking of the poli- 
tical affairs of his kingdom, and even giving us to 
understand that in this respect their affairs were of no 
importance, he afterwards treats of his measures with 
respect to them at great length, as exceedingly fitted 
to call forth a sovereign's piety. 

It is of the more consequence to give his own words, 
as in printing his Memoirs, the editors have been base 
enough to falsify the various passages in which he 
speaks of the Protestants. All that he had written in 
censure of the clergy, they have omitted, as well as 
whatever tended to justify the innovators, as the Re- 
formed were called. For such passages others have 
been substituted, entirely different, and conveying the 
impression that the king contemplated having recourse 
to the severities which were afterwards practised in his 
name. We proceed to re-establish the fidelity of the 
text on the faith of a manuscript, committed by him- 
self, a few days before he died, into the hands of the 
Marischal de Noailles, and whose authenticity the latter 
attested by depositing it in the Royal library, any such 
attestation, however, being nearly superfluous, as the 
summaries are all in the handwriting of Louis XIV. 
himself. 

He says ' the more easily he found his designs realised, 
and the more the success of his reign procured for him 
the glory he coveted, the stronger was his desire to 
serve God.' He recalls what he had done with this 

d 2 



52 the king's opinions 

pious intention, the assistance he had furnished to the 
emperor against the common enemies of the Christian 
name, the proscription of blasphemy, his inflexible 
severity towards duelling, the entire destruction of 
Jansenism in so far as he could perceive, and the dis- 
persion of the communities which appeared to be under 
the influence of those innovators. 

' As for my numerous subjects of the pretended Re- 
formed religion, they constitute an evil which I re- 
garded then, and still regard, with much grief. I 
henceforth adopted that line of conduct with respect to 
them which I cannot see cause for considering bad, 
since God has seen fit that it should be attended, as it 
still is, with many conversions/ He ascribes the schism 
that rent the church, to the vicious lives of the ecclesi- 
astics of the preceding century, to their luxury, their 
debauched manners, to the bad examples they presented 
and the practical abuses they sanctioned, abuses opposed 
alike to the rules and public sentiments of the Church : 
and he adds, — ' The new reformers clearly said no more 
than the truth in many things of that kind where their 
censures were bitter but just. Yet they were wrong 
in all that respected, not what was to be, done, but 
what was to be believed.' He proceeds to sketch the 
rise and progress of the heresy, and continues thus : — 
* The fathers, full of this preoccupation, transmitted it, 
in the most violent state possible, to their children ; 
though essentially of the same nature as all other pas- 
sions which time ever moderates, and often onlv with 
the more success, the less the effort put forth to combat 
them. With such a general apprehension of the sub- 
ject, I thought I could not do better in order gradually 
to reduce the Huguenots of my kingdom, than abstain 
from subjecting them to new rigours and see to the obser- 



AND EARLY POLICY. 53 

vance of all they had obtained under the preceding 
reigns, but, at the same time, grant them nothing 
more, and even confine the execution of the privileges 
they possessed, within the narrowest limits compatible 
with justice or right feeling/ 

He then gives some instances of such restrictions, 
and continues thus: — ' As for favours depending on 
myself personally, I resolved, and have hitherto stood 
firm enough to my purpose, to bestow none on those of 
the religion, not from any bitterness of feeling to them, 
but from kindness — that they might thus be induced to 
examine from time to time, spontaneously, and without 
constraint, whether they really had any good reason for 
voluntarily depriving themselves of advantages which 
they had it in their power to enjoy in common with 
other subjects. 

' That they might the better profit, however, by the 
condition in which they stood, as having stronger mo- 
tives than before to listen willingly to what might turn 
them from their errors, I resolved also to allure the 
most docile by rewards ; to do my utmost to stir up the 
bishops to labour for their instruction, and to remove 
those scandals which at times held them aloof; in fine, 
to appoint to the first situations, and to all in my own 
gift, such persons only as possessed piety, application, 
and learning, men who by a quite opposite course 
might repair those disorders which the conduct of their 
predecessors of old had been the chief cause of pro- 
ducing in the church. 

' But the measures I have hitherto employed, by no 
means include all I have projected in my own mind for 
the recall of persons whose honest attachment to per- 
nicious errors may be traced to the influence of birth 
and education, and who, in most instances, possess 



54 IMPORTANT MEMORIAL 

much zeal and little knowledge. I trust, accordingly, 
to have other opportunities, in the course of these 
memoirs, of introducing some notices of these, without 
entering into premature details of projects which may 
be greatly modified by seasons and circumstances.' 

Such then, were his true sentiments as announced by 
himself for his son's instruction ; and although he does 
not here develope all his designs, we are not therefore 
to conclude that these were inconsistent with the 
general scheme which he minutely details ; which he 
takes praise to himself for having marked out, and the 
fundamental principle of which was, that the Reformed 
should not be subjected to any new rigour. 

But the very designs he then meditated are now 
known to us. A few months before he dictated his 
Memoirs, a project was submitted to him, the original 
copy of which is preserved in the Archives of the 
Secretary of State, with this simple noting, Memorial 
to be kept. It is intituled : ' Considerations relating to Re- 
ligion and the State, intended to prove the necessity and 
the feasibility of re-uniting the heretics of France to the 
Catholic church/ The occasion which led to its being 
submitted to the King, is remarkable, and what I have 
now to state throws quite a new light on this impor- 
tant affair ; a light hitherto intercepted by profoundly 
mysterious circumstances, and without which it would 
have remained involved in impenetrable obscurity. 

Here, however, we must resume our narrative a little 
farther back. While the Calvinists were enjoying a 
happy toleration in their native country, while Turenne, 
not as yet converted, commanded the armies, and Du- 
quene the fleets of France ; while Montausier was making 
an austere biuntness respected at court, while learned men 
of both religions adorned the bar, and the academies and 



SUBMITTED TO THE KING. DO 

colleges, and while, as a consequence of the perpetual 
rivalry between the clergy and the pastors, theology 
and eloquence flourished among both, fresh disputes 
broke forth in the Roman Catholic church, and brought 
the utmost severity of the government on the disputants. 
The two parties were divided by interests merely hu- 
man, more than by any essential difference of doctrine ; 
neither desired to withdraw from the Church of Rome, 
but each did its best to make the reproach of heresy 
attach to its opponents, and to attack them as heretics 
with all the arms of ecclesiastical and royal authority. 
While such were their mutual feelings, their disputes 
in themselves in no way prejudiced the worship of the 
church, for they turned entirely on abstract and meta- 
physical points. But in this kind of contest which 
should first surprise the other in some damnable heresy, 
the Jesuits were either more fortunate or more adroit 
than their adversaries, and brought upon certain 
opinions which they alleged were held by these, a con- 
demnatory sentence from the Pope. Their opponents 
had to submit or to declare themselves refractory chil- 
dren of the church. This gave a new character to 
these disputes, when the King took the government into 
his own hands. In point both of policy and piety he 
dreaded having his reign disquieted by the rise of a new 
heresy, and lamented that men, eminent for virtue, 
should adopt opinions which were reprobated, or at 
least suspected. On this subject he thus explains him- 
self in his Memoirs, and we now give his own words, 
to shew what sentiments influenced him throughout his 
whole reign, and even amid the hatred he bore towards 
certain men's opinions, enabled him to retain whatever 
regard he might feel for their persons. 

We shall thus bring into one chapter, and under one 



56 JESUITS AND JANSENISTS 

point of view, his real sentiments on the two subjects 
which lay at the root of his misfortunes, and produced 
the only two blots in what was otherwise an illustrious 
reign. 

( The church/' we give Louis the XlVth's own words. 
• at the close of long disputes on scholastic points, an 
acquaintance with which, it was admitted, was not 
essential to salvation,— was threatened at last with open 
schism, by persons who were only the more dangerous 
on account of their great merits, had they been but less 
conscious of these themselves. It was no longer a few 
private and obscure doctors who appeared on the scene, 
but bishops in their sees, capable oi drawing multitudes 
after them ; men of immense reputation and of a piety 
truly venerable, so long as it was accompanied with 
submission to the opinions held by the church/ 

The King's first efforts, accordingly, were put forth 
in attempting to smother these nascent disputes, when 
just as they had become one of the most important 
matters of state, just as the government found itself 
compromised by the futility of its endeavours to procure 
the universal reception of the decree of Rome, while 
subscription to that decree was refused by bishops of 
irreproachable lives, by many famous doctors, by priests 
and religious communities of great repute for piety, 
people learned with amazement that the commotion 
was at an end ! 

An apparent peace was concluded in 1669. A few 
words of equivocal import dissipated all alarm. By 
taking advantage of certain ambiguous phrases which 
it was previously agreed that they might employ, these 
bishops and doctors submitted to the decree of Rome. 
Their opponents, after being so cunning as to entrap 
them in this snare, and to bring down upon them both 



UNEXPECTEDLY RECONCILED. 57 

the thunders of the church and the indignation of 
rovalty, lost all that they had gained by such an ap- 
parent schism. This suspension of controversy was 
called ' The peace of the church. 1 

We may here mention, in passing, that this kind of 
truce was the work of the celebrated Princess de Lon- 
gueville, who, when the calamities of the Fronde were 
oyer, became a devotee, and took with her to Port 
Roval the same spirit of intrigue which had before en- 
abled her to sustain a feeble and oppressed party against 
the power of the court and of a favourite. This clever 
saint was no less adroit in negotiating with pious soli- 
taries, holy bishops, king's ministers, and the pope's 
nuncio, than she had been in raising the country, and in 
her love intrigues. Outwitting the Jesuits in all their 
artifices, she saved from their anathemas the sect thev 
were persecuting, and, for some years at least, reconciled 
their enemies with the court and with Rome. 

Such an equivocal peace evidently could not last long. 
It only inflamed the mutual hatred of the parties to it, 
and we shall soon see, what has hitherto escaped notice, 
that on general efforts being made for the conversion of 
the reformed, there rlowed from disputes, in themselves 
so vain, a far more substantial contrariety of sentiments, 
propositions plainly contradictory, modes of action quite 
diverse ; and that this opposition between the two sys- 
tems, both maintained with equal keenness, and both 
adopted in turns by the government, shewed itself even 
in the laws, and thus introduced the most deplorable 
confusion into the whole of this enterprise. 

Not to anticipate events, we shall only say here, that 

this pretended peace of the church was held forth at the 

time as one of the most glorious events of the king's 

reign ; that a medal was speedily struck to commemo- 

D 5 



58 CRAFTY PROJECT FOR REPEALING 

rate it ; and that this success which, as ever happens in 
France, was exaggerated both by flatten" and the com- 
mon joy, led some to hope that all the French might 
with the same ease be brought into one creed. 

Such, then, was the occasion of the king's 
receiving the memorial which proposed the Revoca- 
tion of the Edict of Nantes, as if this only were re- 
quired in order to effect the complete pacification of the 
church. 

It suggested that, first of all, endeavours should be 
used to gain over fifty of the ministers, that these should 
meet in Synod, that a conference should be held with 
Catholic doctors, in the course of which the pastors who 
had been gained over should re-unite themselves with 
the church, that the Edict of Nantes should then be 
repealed as useless, and that application should be made 
to the pope for a dispensation from certain Roman 
Catholic practices as a relief to the consciences of 
scrupulous Calvinists. 

This, it was said, was Cardmal Richelieu's project, 
that he had planned it as the crowning point of hie 
glory, that he had settled the terms of accommodation 
on each of the controverted points, and had gamed over 
a sufficient number of ministers, that he had provided 
the funds that would be required tor the maintenance 
of the ministers when deprived of their charges, and 
that had he lived somewhat longer, he would have an- 
nounced this grand design. • If the project/ adds the 
Memorial, ' were practicable then, is it not infinitely 
more so now, the Religionists, as a party, being weaker, 
the authority of the king having reached its climax, his 
very name having more weight now throughout the 
kingdom than royal armies ever had during the preced- 
ing reign/ — And, 'now when more may be effected 



THE EDICT OF NANTES. 59 

with a little parchment and wax than could then be 
effected with powerful armies/ 

■ The present conjuncture is the most favourable we 
can expect. Thanks to the victorious arms of her king, 
France enjoys profound peace. A perfect mutual under- 
standing subsists between his majesty and his holiness, 
so that they can act in concert and with entire mutual 
confidence. The good fortune which attends his majesty 
in all he undertakes, may well warrant the best hopes 
as to this, the holiest of all and the most favoured of 
heaven ; and, in the last place, the peace procured for 
the church by his majesty's anxious endeavours in the 
return of her doctors to unity of sentiment, seems like 
the prelude and harbinger of this other peace. Should 
nothing be done, in so favourable a concurrence of all 
circumstances, for the accomplishment of this holy enter- 
prise, we may drop all hope of seeing it ever realised, 
and resign ourselves to the everlasting endurance of 
schism in the church.' 

Historians have not been aware, until now, of the 
existence of such a memorial. But in the History of 
the Edict of Nantes it will be seen that shortly after 
the date indicated by the memorial itself, the design was 
attempted and was favoured by Turenne, then a new 
convert. Nay it even passed, some years later, into 
Germany, and if we study the still extant traces of what 
was done on that occasion, we shall perhaps discover 
that a woman not less celebrated than the Duchess de 
Longueville, — one who amid the troubles of the Fronde 
was sometimes her enemy, and sometimes her friend, ' 
but always her rival in wit, beauty, and fascination of 
manners, — the famous Princess Palatine, having become 
not less a devotee, was ambitious in this new career 
likewise of surpassing the D. de Longueville, and 



60 the king's remorse and 

laboured to effect that universal peace of the church in 
Germany and in France, after the partial peace had been 
concluded by her rival between the Jansenists and Rome. 
Be this as it may, the Accommodeurs de Religion as they 
are called in the History of the Edict of Nantes, strove 
for three years to effect this settlement of differences. 
It was at the commencement of that period that Louis 
XIV. dictated to Pelisson what we have just quoted 
from his Memoirs, and can it be doubted that this was 
the project to which reference is there made, or that 
the historical fact is the true comment on the passage ? 

When we attempt to determine when it was that he 
gave his attention to this design, we find that it was in 
one of those passing fits of scrupulosity and devotion 
of which we have spoken. Were the fact isolated, it 
could prove nothing, but we discover its recurrence four 
several times ; the idea of converting the Huguenots, up 
to the date of the Revocation, and from interval to 
interval, attending what might be called the intermittent 
fits of this devotion. At the period we are now endea- 
vouring to elucidate, Madame de Maintenon wrote as 
follows to Madame de St. Geran, who was one of the 
worthiest ladies at court, and with whom that clever 
woman had already formed a strict intimacy. We 
transcribe this as we shall many more of these letters, 
Because, although already before the public, the editor 
has given them wrong dates, and we shall show how 
necessary it is to guard against his mistakes, and to 
restore the proper thread of history. 

' What you ask/ she writes, ■ is no longer a mystery 
anywhere but in the country. . .The fair Madam * com- 
plained to the king of a priest who refused her absolution, 

* Mme. de Montespan.— Ed. 



RUPTURE WITH MME. DE MONTESPAN. 61 

The king would not condemn him until he knew the 
sentiments of M. de Montausier, whom he valued for 
his probity, and of M. Bossuet, whom he respected for 
his learning. M. Bossuet did not hesitate to say that 
the priest had done his duty. M. de Montausier used 
still stronger language. M. Bossuet rejoined with such 
energy, and spoke so much to the purpose about glory 
and religion, that the king, to whom nothing but the 
truth must be said, rose with much agitation, and, 
grasping the duke's hand, said, / promise you I never 
will see her more. As yet he has kept his word. La 
Petite tells me that her mistress is enraged beyond 
expression. She has seen no one for two days, sits 
writing from morning to night, and tears to pieces all she 
has written before she goes to sleep ; I really pity her 
case. Nobody laments for her, although she has been 
of much service to many. The queen sent yesterday to 
know how she was. 'You see,' said she to the gentle- 
man who brought the message, ' and you will give my 
best thanks to her majesty, and tell her that though 
well nigh dead, I am but too well.* The whole court 
is now with Madame de Montausier. We shall see 
whether the king will set out for Flanders without bid- 
ding her farewell. That event is waited for with the 
utmost impatience.' 

All these circumstances go to fix the date of this 
letter, and prove that it does not refer to other scenes 
of a like kind, which often disquieted a passion rendered 
far from tranquil by the religious humours of both 

* Quoiqu* auaiportes de la mort,je ne me porte encore que trop bien. 
There is a play on the word porte in the original, which I have trans- 
ferred to the English well. Another possibly may have been meant 
by this incorrigible wit on de la mort and de V amour, as if to 
puzzle the queen by suggesting that the message may have been — 
Though turned out of doors by love, &c. — Ed. 



62 PROTESTANT SYNOD OF 1673. 

lovers. Madame de Montausier died the following year. 
Early in 1670, the king was preparing for the famous 
journey to Flanders, in which he exhibited himself to 
the inhabitants of the provinces he had conquered in all 
the pomp of Eastern monarchs, and Mme. de Montespan 
shared with the queen in the homage of the sovereign 
and its subjects; hence the date is by no means 
doubtful. 

The prospect of re-uniting the Calvinists, attempted 
ever in vain, and at length acknowledged to be imprac- 
ticable, was finally broken off by the Synod held at 
Charenton in 1673,* and the king's passion for Madame 
de Montespan having resumed all its vivacity, his zeal 
for the conversion of his subjects subsided until the 
return of another fit of devotion. 

* For one of these projects of re-union, vide Appendix, No. II. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Jubilee of 1676 and new devotional fit of the king, — Great 
names still attached to the reformed cause. — Obstacles 
to the conversion of Protestants to Popery. — Ignorance 
and immorality of the Papal clergy. — Rupture between 
the King and Mme. de Montespan. — Remorse of the two 
lovers, and their return to criminal intercourse. — The 
King again repents and sets apart a conversion fund. — 
Pelisson, a convert, appointed to its management. — The 
Roman Catholic Clergy prefer admitting the king's 
claim to the Regale, to relinquishing a part of their 
incomes. — Doubtful character of Pelisson. — The con- 
version fund regarded by the Reformed as the source of 
almost all their calamities.— False impression produced 
at court by the apparent facility of conversions. — Dis- 
honest converters and cheated converts. 

This new fit of devotion was occasioned by the jubilee 
of 1676, and proved as ardent and evanescent as the 
first. But here commences a series of events which, 
without arising from any settled purpose or preconcerted 
plan, resulted in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
by their mere connexion with each other, and were 
accelerated, or retarded, according to the rise or decline 
of this long uncertain devotion. 

The ranks of the reformed were still adorned by some 
of the most illustrious names in France. Among these 



64 NUMBERS OF THE PROTESTANTS. 

we may mention Duquene, who gained that year three 
successive victories at sea over the greatest captain 
Holland ever possessed, and was rewarded accordingly, 
as he well deserved, by the king ; Schomberg, who 
lived to command armies in France, Portugal, Prussia, 
and Ireland, and who that same year, also, while at the 
head of the French troops in Flanders which were 
commanded the year before by the great Conde, baffled 
the hopes of the most numerous allies ; the Duke of la 
Force and his family, a branch of the house of Roche- 
foucauld, from which are descended the two now most 
flourishing branches of that house ; Ruvigny, then pleni- 
potentiary for France at the court of London, and as 
such, entrusted with the most important negotiations ; 
his son, by appointment of the king, Deputy -general of 
the Protestants at court, and who eventually served the 
English to good purpose, under the name of Lord Gal- 
loway. Many of the Calvinist nobility served with 
distinction on board of their country's fleets, or in its 
armies ; and on returning from such scenes to their 
estates, did not find their desire to please the king a 
sufficient motive for changing their religion ; and, not 
to mention the richest burgesses of our commercial 
cities, or two thousand pastors, some of whom were 
venerated for the purity of their morals, and others 
celebrated for their learning and talents, the work of 
conversion had made no progress among the rural 
population. 

It will now be asked what, at this time, was the pre- 
cise number of the Reformed ? But the truth is, no 
one thought as yet of inquiring what their numbers 
were, and some years subsequent to the revocation, the 
question became an idle one, inasmuch as the persecu- 
ting party assured the world, that they never had 



OBSTACLES TO THEIR CONVERSION. 65 

exceeded six hundred thousand, and their opponents 
insisted that they had amounted to nearly two millions. 
However that might be, the number of the converted, 
ample as it appeared to politicians, looked inconsiderable 
to the eyes of those who thought the soul of a plebeian 
equally valuable with that of a patrician ; and this pious 
principle was urged as the grand incentive to all that 
was to be done. But it proved less easy than was at 
first supposed to induce persons in middling circum- 
stances, and particularly the peasantry, to change their 
religion. In that condition of life, a man's pastor is his 
counsellor, his friend, and his judge. Religious exer- 
cises dignify his anxieties, comfort him in sorrow, and 
occupy his mind while otherwise disengaged. To such 
an one, religion comes in the place of morals and of 
politics ; nay, it even influences his physical system. It 
comprises all other sanctions, and absolutely controls 
his mind and senses. The meaning we still attach to 
pagan and paganism, words taken from a latin term.* 
signifying the inhabitants of a village, prove that the 
conversion of that class to Christianity, was far more 
difficult than that of men living in courts and cities. 

The conversion of the Pagans, indeed, was less diffi- 
cult perhaps than that of the Calvinists ; for it may be 
questioned if idolatry, with it's sacrifices, expiations, and 
apotheoses, was more remote from the mysteries and 
ceremonies of the Papal church, than the worship of the 
reformed was. The Pagans were never asked, when 
they prayed, to give up using their mother tongue, or 
to resign themselves for life to the utterance at their 
altars, of such words only as to them had no meaning . 
Conversions in this case could have been looked for only 
from pains-taking efforts made throughout the length 
and breadth of France, by a learned, laborious, and 



66 MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY 

kind-hearted clergy, a clergy following out the true 
principles of Christian love, andnot confounding fierceness 
of persecution with apostolic zeal. Such had ever been the 
conviction of the wisest men of France. We have seen 
Louis XIV. himself in his memoirs, consider a reform in 
the clergy as indispensable, and applaud himself for his 
success in promoting it. But it must be admitted, as 
we shall prove by the most unquestionable testimony, 
that the greater number of ecclesiastics did not at this 
time possess either the general intelligence or the moral 
character which the task required. Some there were, 
indeed, whose rare genius and eminent virtue conferred 
a lustre on an order deemed the first in the state ; but 
the great mass of the clergy was far from possessing 
their learning, talents, or virtues. The true apostles of 
the Roman Catholic Church were attached to the court, 
and proved their influence there by the conversions they 
wrought. As for the rest, they had not even external 
decency of manners to supply the want of sanctity of 
character, nor had they the benevolence which now dis- 
tinguishes the clergy of France from the ecclesiastical 
bodies of all other countries. Intelligence was more 
generally diffused, on the other hand, among the 
reformed pastors ; they shewed more regularity of con- 
duct, and paid more attention than the priests did, to 
the flocks committed to their charge. How, then, 
could it be supposed that people were to be induced to 
change a creed, which they had so much cause to 
respect and love, for a religion which seemed stripped of 
every thing venerable by the vices and the ignorance of 
its ministers ? Here I am aware that mere assertions 
are not enough, but that I must appeal to unquestion- 
able authorities. The Duke of Noailles, the Comman- 
der-in-chief at this time in Lan^uedoc, was continuallv 



OF THE PROTESTANT MINISTERS. 67 

reiterating this complaint. The able editor of his 
Memoirs, now published, relates on the faith of all the 
authentic titles, that the conferences which it was pro- 
posed to hold between the Roman Catholic priests and 
Protestant ministers, did not take place, because none of 
the former could be found learned enough to undertake 
maintaining what was called ' the cause of God ; ' that 
the zeal of the converters, unsupported in the province by 
either the intelligence or the morals of the clergy, looked 
less like genuine zeal than a spirit of hatred and 
revenge ; that the bishops and the priests utterly neg- 
lected the true means of making converts ; that that 
rampart of heresy, the Cevennes, was, beyond any other 
place, notorious for the prevalence among its clergy of 
vices which utterly disgraced them ; that a cathedral 
with its chapter, the parish priests, and several religious 
houses, hardly supplied the Roman Catholics with a 
single sermon in the month, while the Calvinists of the 
same district, with only two or three ministers, had a 
sermon every day. And he adds this reflection: — 
1 Although the Church of France had at this time 
learned divines, eminent bishops, famous preachers* 
men, in short, truly deserving our respect, whether we 
look to their mental accomplishments or moral purity, 
still the same causes that favoured the progress of the 
new sects at first, continued to subsist in the provinces. ' 
The Duke of Noailles perpetually recurs to this sub- 
ject of complaint. ' We have done nothing,' says 
he, ' to any purpose, if the king compel not the bishops 
to send good priests to instruct the people who want 
men to preach to them ; but in this I fear the king will 
find himself worse obeyed than by the religionists ? ' It 
is a point on which all the reports then transmitted to 
the government, and still preserved in the archives, are 



68 EVIDENCE OF FENELON 

agreed. M. d'Aguesseau, father of the future Chan- 
cellor of France, was at that time Intendant of Lan- 
guedoc, and thus expressed himself :— ' What among 
other causes leads the Huguenots to cling to their creed 
is the quantity of instruction they receive in their own 
religion, and the little of it they can see given in ours.' 
A report on Saintonge states, that of six hundred par- 
ishes, Advent and Lent sermons were preached in only 
six. The Intendant of Rochelle wrote to the court as 
follows : ' Nothing so much injures religion as the 
licentious living, the bad behaviour, and the avarice of 
the priests. These vices afforded pretexts for schism in 
former times, and they still hinder the return of those 
who have left the church/ 

Fenelon, whom modern times may adduce as rivalling 
the finest characters of antiquity, expressed himself in 
like terms. He was sent, we all know, on a mission 
into Saintonge, two months after the revocation, and 
we have discovered almost all the reports he trans- 
mitted, hitherto unknown to the public, and written out 
and subscribed by himself. ' The Huguenots, says he, 
' seem touched with our instructions, even to the shed- 
ding of tears, and they are ever telling us ; ' we should 
be most willing to agree with you, but you are here 
only on a visit. No sooner will you be gone, than we 
shall be at the mercy of monks who preach to us in 
Latin only, about indulgences and monkery ; we shall 
no longer have the Gospel read to us ; we shall no 
longer have it explained to us ; we shall never be spoken 
to but in threats.' * * * ' It is true,' he adds, 
' there are but three sorts of priests in this part of the 
country, seculars (parish priests,) Jesuits and Francis- 
cans. Of these the last are despised and detested, par- 
ticularly by the Huguenots, whom on all occasions they 



IN FAVOUR OF THE PROTESTANTS. 69 

inform against and persecute. The Jesuits of Marennes 
consist of four iron heads, who never speak to the new- 
converts of anything" but fines and imprisonment in this 
world, and the Devil and hell in the next. It has cost 
us infinite pains to prevent these good fathers from 
crying out against our gentle methods, as they make 
their severity the more odious, and as all the world flees 
from them and follows us, loading us with benedictions, 
The deference we have shown to these good fathers, 
prevents their taking offence, and we daily unite with 
them in concerting many measures. They live without 
scandal, and are respected. Were the Jesuits to send 
here, instead of such harsh and hot-headed persons, men 
of moderation and candour, they might benefit the whole 
country. After all, there are none to be found better 
than them. The parish priests have no turn for public 
speaking, and this puts the Roman Catholic church to 
shame, for the Huguenots used to have ministers who 
comforted and exhorted them in the touching language 
of Scripture.' . . . He recurs again and again to these 
complaints. ■ What we need/ says he, ' for the whole 
of this district is to have priests with some capacity for 
speaking, men who might edify the people and gain 
their confidence.' 

We might give many such testimonies, but will con- 
fine ourselves to one more. M. de Portchartrain, min- 
ister of state, in a memorial read to the privy council 
in 1698, says : ' One cannot fail to observe that in this 
affair the greater number of ecclesiastics are actuated 
only by a spurious zeal and by resentment/ 

What ought accordingly to have been the first step 
towards the conversion of the Huguenots was the re- 
form, or, in one word, the conversion of the clergy. 
This, we shall find in the sequel, was attempted, but 



70 JUBILEE OF 1676. 

only when too late, and when the main design had 
quite misgiven. Thus these two endeavours (to pro- 
mote the unity of the church) were both made simul- 
taneously, and failed simultaneously, so that Louis 
XIV found the limits of his authority in the two 
religions. 

Very different, indeed, from any such preliminarv 
conversion of the clergy, was the method first adopted 
in this affair of the conversion of the Huguenots. .All 
the memoirs of that period inform us, that in 1676.. the 
better part of those who were attached to the court 
succeeded in again separating the two lovers, and that 
after putting an end to the scandal of their connexion, 
they endeavoured to put an end also to that of their 
rupture. 

f The rupture/ says Mme. de Cay his, ' took place at 
the time of a jubilee. The king had devotional feel- 
ings at bottom , which revealed themselves even amid 
the greatest disorders of his life as respected the fair 
sex. That, indeed, was his only weakness. To native 
wisdom he added such regularity of behaviour as never 
to have missed attending mass during the whole of his 
life, excepting two days, and on both he was with the 
army. The great festivals of the church were occasions 
to him of great remorse, for he was equally troubled at 
the thought of omitting his devotions, and of perform- 
ing them amiss. Mme. de Montespan had like feelings ; 
and when she allowed this to be seen, it was not for the 
mere purpose of conforming her conduct with that of the 
king. At length came the jubilee alluded to ; urged by 
their consciences, the two lovers parted in good earnest. 
at least as they thought. Mme. de Montespan came to 
Paris, visited the churches, fasted, praved, and wept on 
account of her sms. The kins' was no less devout a 



THE KING'S INCONSTANCY, 71 

penitent on his side. The jubilee over, gained or not 
gained, it became a question — was Mme. de Montespan 
to return to court ? e Why not,' said even the most 
virtuous of her relations and friends. Mme. de Monte- 
span, it was said, both from her rank and from her 
office, ought to be there ; she may be there, and may 
live there in as Christian a manner as anywhere. Thus 
thought the Bishop of Meaux. But there still remained 
one difficulty. Was she to appear before the king 
without any previous preparation ? To avoid the 
awkwardness of surprise, they ought to see each other 
before meeting in public. This principle being adopted, 
it was arranged that the king should visit her, but that 
there might not be any impropriety for slander to take 
advantage of, it was agreed that some of the gravest 
and most respectable ladies of the court should be pre- 
sent at the interview, and that the king should see 
Mme. de M. only in their presence. The visit took 
place as had been arranged.' * 

On this catastrophe Mine de Maintenon assumed a 
more serious tone. ' I was in the right,' says she, 
* when I told you that M. Bossuet, throughout this whole 
affair, would act the part of dupe. With all his talents 
he has none of the wits of a courtier. With all his 

I have omitted the conclusion of this letter because it affects being 
witty where a right-minded person would have seen occasion only for 
seriousness and sorrow. Suffice it to say that the adulterous attach- 
ment of the parties was renewed. It is painful to drag the Christian 
reader through such details, yet it is well, that from the past experi- 
ence of France, we should learn how tenderly the Papacy can deal 
with the worst sins in its own children, and how morally worthless 
were the royal repentant fits which it took advantage of in order to 
make the king its tool in exterminating those who professed the Gos- 
pel in its scriptural purity. — Ed. 



72 CORRECTION OF DATES. 

zeal he has done just what Lauzun* would have been 
ashamed to have done ; meaning to convert them, he 
has made them as bad as ever. His projects all go for 
nothing, and none but Father la Chaise could make 
them succeed. Twenty times has he condoled with me 
over the king's aberrations, but why don't he positively 
refuse him the sacraments ? He contents himself with 
a half conversion. There is some truth in the Provincial 
Letters. Father la Chaise means well, but the air of a 
court corrupts the purest and softens the most severe.' 

The romance prefixed to Mme. de Maintenon's Let- 
ters under the title of her Memoirs, misdating the 
above incident by transferring it to 1675, would fain 
make all the circumstances connected with it tally with 
the events of that year. As facts of the utmost impor- 
tance may be traced to this very transient conversion, 
it is of some consequence that we correct this error — 
and nothing is more easy than to fix the date pre- 
cisely. The jubilee did not take place for France until 
1676 : Father la Chaise did not become the king's con- 
fessor until February 1675, and Mme. de Maintenon 
would not within three weeks after have spoken of him 
as she does here, Besides, Mile, de Blois, afterwards 
Duchess of Orleans, was born in May 1677. Having 
elucidated these facts, we proceed to the sequel. 

In this new fit of devotion, or perhaps to expiate 
such a course of backsliding, the king set apart a third 
of the Economats for the conversion of heretics. This 
destination of money was for some time kept secret, 
either to prevent the conversions being decried and 
suspicion cast on the sincerity of persons more influ- 
enced by worldly motives than by their convictions, or 

* For the character of this eccentric person, see Mr. James's Life 
and Times of Louis XIV. 



CURRENT PRICE OF CONVERSIONS. 73 

rather, perhaps, because the regard for propriety which 
appeared in all the actions of Louis the XlVth, would 
not allow him to make a shew of apostolic zeal, while 
his conduct in other respects accorded so ill with such 
a sentiment. The famous convert Pelisson, whose 
talents had gained the confidence of the prince, and to 
whom the latter dictated his memoirs, had the charge 
of this conversion fund, and drew up the rules to be 
observed by those who worked under him. He informed 
the bishops that the surest way to gratify the king, was 
to send up numerous lists of converts, and to observe 
the instructions contained in a document which he sent 
them.* Concerned only with the conversions yet to 
be made, he openly declared that he had promised not 
to say a word to the king about those which had taken 
place prior to that singular period, 1676. 

On receiving the sums remitted, the Bishops sent 
back lists of converts, with the sums paid for each on 
the margin and probative documents, such as abjurations 
and acknowledgments for the money paid. The current 
price of conversions in the remote parts of France 
was six livres a-head.f Some went even lower. The 
dearest case I have been able to discover, was that of 
a numerous family, which cost, for all, forty livres. 
Sub-clerks examined the documents, and saw that each 
receipt for payment was accompanied with an abjura- 
tion in proper form. Each province supplied at first 
only about from three to four hundred conversions in 
the year. In ordinary enterprises we estimate the ob- 
stacles to success by the amount of the requisite outlav, 
but the sums transmitted being distributed at the rate 
of so much a head, and at so low a rate, the more 

* Vide Appendix, No. III. f About five shillings sterling.— Ed. 

E 



74 ORIGIN AND EFFECTS OF 

money a bishop sent for, the more zealous was he 
thought. Pelisson's miracles soon became the talk of 
the court, The devotes themselves could hardly resist 
the temptation to jest at the expense of this golden 
eloquence, not quite so learned, said they, as that of 
Bossuet, but far more persuasive. The funds appro- 
priated to this religious corruption were augmented 
yearly, and circumstances so far favoured the king's 
pious undertaking, for it was precisely at this 
period that the crown decided in its own favour 
the long litigated question whether the Kings of France 
had a right to dispose of the revenues of vacant bene- 
fices, a right which in France used to be called the 
Droit de regale, an old expression, not signifying a 
regal right, but an unexpected advantage, a king's 
waif, falling to the feudal lord ; and this equivocal term 
possibly went far to give a colour of law to the claim of 
the kings of France. Be that as it might, the clergy 
lost no time in acknowledging a claim which had been 
obstinately contested for ages. May we presume so far 
as to state that it had been proposed that the cost of 
the conversions should be charged upon the richest 
benefices, but according to all appearances the greater 
number of incumbents preferred yielding the point as 
to the vacant benefices to the sacrifice even of a small 
part of their incomes. But, in fine, a new fund, and 
one which there seemed a natural propriety in devoting 
to pious purposes, happening to fall into the hands of 
the government, it was applied in this manner to the 
purchasing of conversions. All possible means were 
employed to augment it to the utmost ; the claims of 
the crown were made applicable to all parts of the king- 
dom : vacant benefices were studiouslv delaved to be 
filled up ; in one word, it was on this occasion that that 



THE CONVERSION FUND. 75 

department of the administration of church property 
took the form which it preserves to this day, and which 
Pelisson contrived to make in some sort a distinct branch 
of the ministry. It is annoying that from his reaching 
this point, his accounts are no longer found in good 
order. I have no wish to cast a slur on his fidelity, 
but the truth is, that this person, commendable as he 
was in many respects, being perhaps the first writer 
who gave an elegant and rapid simplicity to the French 
language, combined with that new character of gran- 
deur to which such efforts were then made to elevate it, 
this person, whose memory is respected for having, 
while Fouquet's * confidential clerk, from the vault of 
his prison defended the cause of his master as if his 
own, has left nothing but confusion in his accounts. 
The traditions respecting him, still to be found in the 
offices of the (Economats into which we carried our in- 
vestigations, are not favourable to him, and to all ap- 
pearance this famous convert died in the faith he had 
abandoned. 

From this money-chest, compared by the Reformed 
to Pandora's box, issued, in fact, almost all their 
calamities. It may easily be supposed that the purchase 
of these conversions from the very dregs of the Re- 
formed, the tricks and pious frauds mixed up with the 
bargains so made, together with the exaggerated ac- 
counts sent up by faithless agents, gave the king a false 
impression, that the Reformed, far from having any 
real or settled regard for their religion, were ready to 

* Fouquet had been procurator general of the parliament of Paris, 
but resigned that office to become superintendent of the finances. He 
was arrested and condemned to perpetual imprisonment for peculation 
in 1661, when of all his friends Pelisson almost alone remained true 
to him. — Ed. 

E 2 



76 NATURAL PROGRESS 

sacrifice it to the slightest object of personal interest, 
and to this false impression we may almost exclusively 
ascribe the laws we shall now find appearing in rapid 
succession.* The government flattered itself that these 
would prove effective threats, and never need to be exe- 
cuted : a notion rashly adopted at first, and sadly re- 
futed by experience in the issue, but which formed 
almost the only principle of the futile and far-famed 
enterprise that followed. 

First, it was found necessary to employ restraint in 
order to retain in the Roman Catholic church, those who 
had been caught by so poor a bait. Some weak crea- 
tures who saw that they had only to make an abjuration 
in order to their receiving a moderate reward, no sooner 
pocketed the money than they went back to the Re- 
formed worship. Others, after receiving a pittance as 
alms, had scrawled as a receipt for payment, a cross 
instead of their names, from being unable^ to write, 
but had no idea that they had thus renounced their re- 
ligion. Hence it was thought necessary to re-enact the 
law against the relapsed. This was done in March 
1679, when banishment, the amende honorable, and 
confiscation of goods, were added as penalties. The 
preamble to the new law expressly states the motives 
that led to it : — ( We are informed that in several parts 
of the kingdom, many persons are to be found who 
after having abjured the Pretended Reformed religion 
with the view of sharing in the sums distributed by our 
command among the new converts, return soon after- 
wards to their former faith/ It is true that this new 
species of backsliding converts might be regarded as 
profane persons who had duped the missionaries of 

* Vide Appendix, No. IV. 



OF LEGISLATIVE WRONG. 77 

money intended for true converts only — nay had swin- 
dled the king himself ; but thus it was that a new 
system of jurisprudence, and one of ever-increasing 
severity as regarded that offence, was introduced ; and 
we shall see by and bye, what strange advantage was 
taken of these first severities in order to effect their 
gradual augmentation. 

To conclude, that we may embrace all that related 
to this fund in one view, and shew how lightly the 
affair of these conversions was managed, we may state 
that presentations to benefices were often delayed for 
the purpose of having their revenues laid out in buying 
up men's consciences, but that no sooner was the fund 
charged only with annuities promised to persons whose 
change of creed had deprived them of their means of 
living, than no farther efforts were made to keep up the 
supplies. The dispensateur of benefices relaxed in his 
severity, and took no more pains to meet his engage- 
ments by prolonging vacancies. The greater number 
of such pensions ceased to be paid. Persons who had 
sacrificed their position in society to their change of 
creed, /-and whose losses had thus been compensated by 
the king, fell into the disgrace which in France ever 
attends poverty. The singular spectacle thus presented 
of dishonest converters and duped converts, must be 
regarded as one of the innumerable causes which made 
the enterprise miscarry. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Mme. Montespan triumphs. — Secret progress of devotion 
in the king. — Mme. Maintenons letters. — Devotion, not 
policy, the motive of the king's design of converting the 
Protestants. — Reports concerning them sent up from all 
the provinces. — Character and conduct of Chateauneuf 
— Contrast between two Reports, the one from the Jan- 
senist, the other from the Jesuit party. — D'Aguesseau 
the author of the former. —His character and policy — 
Loss to the Protestants from the absence of M. de 
Pompone, the friend, relation, and disciple of the 
Port-royalists. 

Matters beginning to take this course, Mme. de Mon- 
tespan shewed herself triumphant in the eyes of the 
whole court and of France. Every day seemed to bring 
her new homage. Yet even at this period, whether 
from the natural subsidence of the passions of his youth, 
or from the perseverance with which Mme. de Mainte- 
non insinuated her influence over him, devotion was 
making secret progress in the heart of the king. We 
find that lady writing thus, on the 19th of April, 1679. : 
f The king has been in my cabinet for these two hours. 
He is the most loveable man in his kingdom. I spoke 
to him of Father Bourdaloue. He listened attentively 
to all I had to say. Possibly he thinks more about his 
salvation than the court gives him credit for. He has 



CHARACTER OF MME. DE MAINTENON. /9 

good feelings, and frequent returns to God/ We shall 
have more and more occasion as we proceed, to refer to 
this new favourite's letters, and may now remark, that 
the slightest suspicion has never been cast on their 
fidelity. Voltaire omits no opportunity of censuring 
the editor, and even charges him with falsehood in what 
he says of himself; while he perceives such marks of 
nature and veracity in the letters, as to consider it im- 
possible that they can be forgeries. ' They constitute,' 
says he, ' a much more valuable record than one can 
well imagine, discovering to us that medley of religiosity 
and gallantry, of dignity and of weakness, so often to 
be found in the human heart, and not least in that of 
Louis the XlVth.' 

The truth is, Mme. de Maintenon was far from being 
so mysterious, or even so discreet a person, as one would 
suppose from the success that crowned so unpromising 
an ambition as hers. In her letters we find her often 
betraying herself, and often spontaneously revealing her 
inmost feelings. She had been accustomed in early 
life to the charm of brilliant conversation, as well as 
to that of giving utterance to the overflowings of mutual 
confidence and love. Enjoyments so natural and genu- 
ine as these, were in fashion in her younger days, and 
that fashion might partly be traced to the general preva- 
lence in those days of a taste for romances, such as are 
now no longer read. But from a bent of character which 
runs so easily into exaggeration, affectation, and all 
the other absurdities so well exposed by Moli&re, Mme. 
de Maintenon adopted only what was pleasing, refined, 
and solid, — a profound acquaintance with the passions, 
and a considerate employment of all the arts of making 
herself agreeable. 

If instead of sitting down to compose wretched 



80 LOYALTY AND INOFFENSIVENESS 

memoirs, full of blunders and anachronisms, the editor 
had been at the pains to arrange the letters in their 
chronological order, which he might easily have accom- 
plished by taking the subjects for his guides in default 
of dates, as we have already done in some instances, no 
reading could well have been more instructive or agree- 
able. Neither in history nor fiction do we find an ad- 
venture better fitted to amuse our curiosity, or to assist 
us in the study of the human heart, by unfolding to us 
its most hidden windings. "We see her emerge from 
the family of a burlesque poet, and pass from intimate 
companionship with a woman of gallantry, the famous 
Ninon, to intimacy with a monarch, who was of all men 
the most scrupulously observant of the proprieties of a 
throne ; a monarch of so imposing a presence when 
surrounded by a court, that as was remarked by a per- 
son of great observation, only once in the course of his 
long reign was there ever discovered the slightest 
change in the expression of his countenance. We have 
just seen with how much sagacity she penetrated into the 
character of the king the first time she appeared in his 
presence, and the clever and wise advice she gave to 
his favourite. We now behold her adopting for herself 
the part which that favourite had not sufficient force of 
character to seize. Ever on the watch to please by 
appearing religious, we find her ere long blaming too 
rigid a piety and begging that something might be left 
to the operation of time ; that is, to the influence she 
was slowly acquiring over the monarch's affections. 
Let us continue, then, to glean from her letters farther 
proofs of the evident and necessary connexion of their 
contents with our present investigation ; they will be 
found at once to explain and prove our positions. 

Subsequent to the letter we have quoted, she writes 



OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 81 

thus on the 28th of October, of the same year, 1679 : 
* The King is full of right feelings ; he reads Holy 
Scripture at times, and finds it the most beautiful of 
books. He owns his weaknesses, confesses his faults ; 
we must wait for the operation of grace. He thinks 
seriously about the conversion of the heretics, and will 
apply himself, by and by, in good earnest to that im- 
portant work.' Can we longer doubt that that enter- 
prise was the result of devotion, not of policy ? Proofs 
to this effect might be multiplied without end. In 
none of the severities we soon find put into operation 
against the Protestants ; in none of the preambles to so 
many rigorous declarations, orders in council, and edicts 
soon launched against them ; in short, no where do we 
find a whisper uttered at the expense of their loyalty. 
In not one of the memorials drawn up at this period 
and afterwards preserved in the government archives, 
are they represented as a dangerous body. Not one of 
these contains the slightest accusation or has any po- 
litical bearing ; they show us at a glance that it was not 
a faction that the government tried to weaken, or even 
a dangerous heresy that it sought to extirpate, but that 
the only object sought was the recal into the right 
path, of subjects who had wandered into error. 

Forthwith, from all the provinces, there were sent up 
detailed statements as to their numbers, their property, 
and their dispositions. In these, their names, families, and 
occupations, were particularised, and notices were often 
added, giving the character of individuals and their con- 
nexions. Yet in none of these are they charged with 
being engaged in intrigues, ill disposed towards the go- 
vernment, or implicated in suspicious alliances ; but with 
having their burying ground too near that of the Roman 
Catholics, with singing psalms too loud, with allowing 

e 5 



82 CHARGES AGAINST THE PROTESTANTS. 

the bells of their steeples to call them to their temples 
at the same time that the bells of the Roman Catholics 
called them to the churches. Thus the very men who 
have been signalised as dangerous persoDs, are found to 
be denounced for no worse crime than being accounted 
strongly attached to their creed. Nay, they are accused 
of being charitable to each other, and carefully attentive 
to the morals and education of their youth. The com- 
mendation uniformly bestowed on their loyalty by 
Louis the XlVth, would not allow that to be questioned, 
and it was just because they no longer constituted a fac- 
tion in the state, that no alarm was felt in treating them 
with a rigour which soon exceeded all bounds. 

Even the despatches which were sent up from all 
quarters' giving details as to their numbers, occupations, 
and property, did not form a part of any general plan 
which the government had adopted for obtaining such 
information. It is impossible to find, after the strictest 
search, any formal census such as must have preceded 
the execution of any grand project. All that can be 
found is but some detached and isolated schedules, in- 
correct and of suspicious origin, transmitted, without 
being sent for, by the zealous converters of this or that 
particular town. We repeat what we have already 
stated, that the precise numbers of that ill-fated race 
were as little known then as now. Nothing was done 
with a view to ascertain their numbers. In one word, 
at the period we have now reached, no settled plan or 
system had been adopted with regard to them. 

The most secret records, and the most public events, 
concur with the two letters of Mme. de Maintenon, in 
shewing how matters now stood. Now it was that 
Phelypeaux de Chateauneuf, one of the secretaries of 
state, learning what were the sentiments of the king, 



chateauneuf's incapacity. 83 

and afraid to trust to his own youth and inexperience, 
hastily advised with persons who were acquainted with 
the provinces most infected with heresy, as to how the 
conversions might best be accelerated, Chateauneuf 
held the same department that his father, La Vrilliere, 
had held, that of the general affairs of the pretended 
reformed, a department which, when Louis XIV. began 
to administer the government himself, he had consi- 
dered to be not beyond the capacity of the least capable 
of his secretaries, but which was now to be charged 
with the most important business in the kingdom. A 
person of the utmost sagacity was now needed to select 
which was best from among the various plans suggested 
by an apostolic zeal, ever confident of success, because 
ever thinking itself assured of the divine assistance. 

This Chateauneuf remained in office for twenty-five 
years, with the small consideration which we have seen 
in our days bestowed on that branch of the Phelypeaux 
which has had so singular a destiny. Having taken the 
office of secretary of state from a younger branch, it 
maintained itself there, without favour, yet without dis- 
grace, and without a single person of that line giving 
proofs even of the most ordinary ability. This may be 
guessed from the condition to which the affairs of the 
pretended reformed were sunk, a condition deplorable in 
itself, and embarrassing to the kingdom ; and yet these 
affairs for the greater part of that long interval, com- 
prised nearly the whole of the department committed to 
that branch of the family. The yo anger line, on the 
other hand, though subject to greater vicissitudes, is the 
only one that has produced distinguished men, such as 
the Chancellor de Port Chartrain, and his grandson, 
whom we have seen honoured by Louis XVI. 

Chateauneuf, in early life, was destined for the 



84 JANSENIST AND JESUIT COUNSELS 

church, but abandoned that calling to become a secre- 
tary of state ; and at the time we are informed by Mme. 
de Maintenon, of the king's intention to labour unre- 
mittingly for the conversion of the heretics, he hastened 
to write to the provinces as to the best means to be 
employed for promoting the conversions, He begged 
that the replies might be sent as promptly as possible. 
Two very remarkable reports are to be found in that 
department ; one complains that insufficient time was 
allowed for a satisfactory answer, and both give us a 
view of nearly all that was done in the course of that 
and the following year. 

It is still more worthy of notice, that these two 
reports, agreeing as they do in some points, are in their 
principles as divergent as possible. The truth is, not- 
withstanding the reconciliation called the peace of the 
church, the disputes between the Jansenists and the 
Molinists, were far from being extinct. Each party 
persisted in its hatred of the other. Each still re- 
garded its opponents as doomed to anathema, and cher- 
ished the hope of sooner or later involving them in the 
reproach of heresy. Men, equal in morals, talents, and 
learning, nursed in secret these pious animosities, and 
as these led them to opposite and irreconcilable opin- 
ions, their silence was constrained, their peace apparent 
only. All this is but too well known, but it has only 
now been discovered, that when Louis XIV. began to 
occupy himself, in good earnest, with the conversion of 
the Calvinists, his ministers no sooner sought for secret 
advice on the subject, than each of the parties then 
dividing the Roman church, resolved to secure to itself, 
if possible, the management of the conversions, proposed 
its own method, wanted to convert in its own wav, and 



COMPARED AND CONTRASTED. 85 

fain would have added to its own proselytes so large a 
flock of new catechumens. 

Neither report proposes the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes ; and even the party, whose principles naturally 
led to intolerance, did not suggest persecution as a 
means of conversion. The starting point with both was 
the observance, yet a strict, literal, and rigorous obser- 
vance of the Edict. But the one looked chiefly to fre- 
quent instructions on the part of the clergy, and to the 
edifying influence of their example ; the other to a uni- 
form and rigorous exercise of the king's authority. The 
one method was dictated by the austere piety naturally 
flowing from the principles of Port Royal; a piety, 
nevertheless, whose very strictness prescribed Christian 
toleration, as it held it to be better for a man to remain 
out of the church, than to enter it without a right dis- 
position. Dictated by such principles, that report de- 
plores the relaxation of morals among the clergy, and 
suggests the intervention of the royal authority only in 
urging the bishops to greater zeal. It recommends the 
avoidance of controverted points, and the enforcement 
of the moral truths of the gospel in pulpit addresses, but 
urges, above all things, that a change for the better 
should first be effected in the moral conduct of Roman 
Catholics, so that the conversion of the Huguenots 
might be promoted by edification and example. 

As for human means, to use the expression of the re- 
port itself, it suggests that without doing any thing 
violent or unjust, the Calvinists should be deprived of 
all favours in the sole gift of the King, and that the 
clergy, at their next assembly, should set apart a hun- 
dred thousand crowns for the new converts ; but that 
this sum should be charged on the great livings, the 
small being over-burdened already, It also recommends 



S6 CHARACTERS OF d'aUGESSEAU. 

that precipitation be avoided, and adds, that even should 
its suggestions be approved, it would be unadvisable to 
carry them into effect immediately, or all at one time, 
but that each be taken up apart and put into operation 
as a prudent regard to circumstances may direct. 

The author of this report was M. D'Aguesseau, in- 
tendant of Languedoc, a man who as a magistrate 
was beloved by M. Colbert, and was rendered famous 
by those great public works which at once gave life to 
that province, and conferred honour on France. His 
piety flowed from the principles of Port Royal, and he 
succeeded at length, though somewhat late, in securing 
the ascendancy of those principles in the proceedings of 
the government towards the Calvinists. 

The other report, proceeding on the principles which 
have been charged on their opponents as a reproach, 
exhibits no such marks of circumspection, prudence, 
and slow procedure. It seems to aim rather at the 
instantaneous extinction of heresy than at the conver- 
sion of persons living in error. It points far more to 
the intervention of the royal authority than to the in- 
structions of the clergy. Among several severe mea- 
sures which it suggests, we rind the suppression of the 
chambres mi-parties still preserved by the Protestants, 
and their dismissal from all their employments in the 
collection of the revenue. It ascribes the rueagreness 
of the instructions bestowed by the ecclesiastics, to 
their povertv, and among other means of promoting 
conversions, recommends an augmentation of the 
revenues of the Jesuits. ' The regulations which may 
be adopted,' says the Report at its close, f will be quite 
ineffectual if the officers of the crown be not particularly 
vigilant in severely punishing all contraventions/ Thus 
from the earliest deliberations on the subject, there 



AND OF M. DE POMPON E. 6/ 

may be remarked that diversity of opinions which led 
to so much uncertainty in the course pursued by the 
government after the revocation of the edict, and which 
produced, as we shall see, several successive changes 
of system. 

How much influence do we often find to be usurped 
by fortune, even in matters which ought to be quite 
beyond her influence ! Circumstances altogether un- 
connected with this affair, removed to a distance from 
the privy council, M. de Pompone, the friend, relation, 
and disciple of the solitaries of Port Royal ; a man who 
would have been the advocate of moderate opinions, 
who was guided by such opinions in the administration 
of the provinces subject to his department, but who was 
not recalled to the council until several years after the 
revocation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The court wavers between the Jansenist and Jesuit systems. 
— The Charabres mi-parties of Languedoc and Dau- 
phiny suppressed. — Protestants expelled from their em- 
ployments in the revenue. — Colbert's high estimate of 
their probity . — This established by other proofs. — The 
Court surprised to find the Protestants prefer being 
dismissed, to deserting their faith. — The King's zeal for 
their conversion no sooner known than imitated by clergy 
and laity. — Ambition, selfishness, and vanity, stimulate 
to persecution, — Protestant churches demolished. — The 
Commission for repairing infractions of the edict of 
Nantes becomes a fruitful source of injustice, and how. 
— The Intendants suggest and the Court adopts various 
persecuting measures.— Mixed marriages. — Blow on 
parental authority .—The Violence of the magistracy 
leads to their assumption of illegal powers and to the 
permanent unhingement of government hi France. 

Without precisely adopting either of these systems, the 
court resigned itself to the natural tendency of the 
French government to employ such methods as promise 
speedy and easy success. One of its first acts was the 
suppression of the chambres mi-parties * in the parlia- 
ments of the southern provinces, as suggested by the 

* See Note p. 36. 



CHAMBRES MI-PARTIES SUPPRESSED. 89 

second of the two reports we have been considering, 
and, had its object been the mere obliteration of all 
traces of past animosities, this suppression of these 
chambers could not have been sufficiently commended. 
Difference of opinion on such subjects as purgatory, the 
worship of images, and the real presence, ought not 
to be accounted a reason for there being different 
courts of justice where all are subjects of the same 
monarchy. The advocates of reform in the law courts, 
had urged this measure ten years before, but all the 
wisdom of their arguments had produced no effect. The 
King now adopted it in consequence of certain repre- 
sentations submitted to him in a new report, still extant 
in the public records, and which, it is curious to ob- 
serve, does not contain a single political consideration, 
but is confined to religious motives connected with the 
conversions. The chief of these is that in the event of 
a new convert being sued at law by a Huguenot from 
spite, the matter would naturally be taken to the cham- 
ber of the edict, and that the defendant, being regarded 
by the Calvinist judges there as a renegade, would have 
no chance of justice. 

The suppression of these chambers was no encroach- 
ment on the Edict of Nantes, as the report to which we 
refer, is especially intended to demonstrate. The fol- 
lowing, in fact, are the very expressions of the old law : 
' We will that the said chambers be re-united and incor- 
porated with the said parliaments, in like form as the 
others have been, as soon as the causes which have led 
us to establish them shall have ceased to exist among 
our subjects ; and in farther execution hereof, the presi- 
dents and counsellors of the said religion shall be named 
and received as presidents and counsellors of the said 
courts, This intention of the law was complied with, 



90 DISMISSAL OF THE PROTESTANTS 

and they were incorporated accordingly with the parlia- * 
ments to which they were an appendage. 

The exclusion of the reformed from all employments 
connected with the revenue, was another suggestion of 
the second of the reports mentioned in the last chapter, 
and it soon followed the suppression of the chambres 
mi-parties. To this it is well known that M. Colbert 
gave a most reluctant consent, lamenting the dismissal 
from the finance department, of a multitude of men 
whom he loved for their integrity and their modesty.* 
Without ascribing the circumstance altogether to their 
good qualities, we must observe, that under Colbert's 
administration, the collectors of the taxes were neither 
hated for rapacity, nor ridiculed for indecent prodiga- 
lity. Read, if you will, all the satirical works of that 
time : turn, for example, to the Theatre de Moliere ; you 
will not discover one of them brought upon the stage. 
When La Fontaine says in his Fables, — 

Devourers many you will find in h — 11, 

The courtiers here, and there the judges dwell, 

he had an excellent opportunity for introducing tax- 
gatherers, but says not a word on the subject. Subse- 
quent to this, and when times were changed, they are 
added in a note by his commentators. This silence of 
the satirists with respect to persons connected with the 
taxes during the years that Protestants filled the greater 
number of offices in that department, surely speaks 
immensely to their credit. Not until after their dis- 
missal, do we find these scandalous fortunes amassed, 
which have been branded by the satire of La Bruyere, 
and some years later, came the time of the Turka- 

* See Note C. 



FROM PUBLIC EMPLOYMENTS. 91 

rets, who were quite unknown during the first of those 
periods. 

Here, in particular, we may observe how much the 
course pursued by the government may be traced to the 
lamentably false idea caught from the pretended facility 
with which the first conversions were effected, the 
idea that the Calvinists were so slightly attached to 
their religion, that they could be induced to renounce it 
for the sake of an inconsiderable bribe. Thus, without 
either desiring such a result, or providing for it, the 
government turned out of employments in which probity 
was peculiarly requisite, men who had got for them- 
selves a name for possessing that very quality, and this, 
too, just at the time that financial embarrassments 
began first to be felt. 

Thus, the king's zeal for the conversion of the here- 
tics daily revealed itself, and under a prince whom all 
men sought to gratify, and who could not bestow a 
single look on even the first men of the court, without 
its being regarded as a flattering distinction which shed 
a kind of illustration over the whole of a man's life, the 
mere fact of his wishes being known, sufficed to produce 
a universal movement. All ambitious men connected 
with the administration, immediately affected their mas- 
ter's passion, and if even when the court strove most to 
be just, public opinion shewed itself above law, and 
often thwarted and overmastered the government, what 
was not to be expected when the mind of the king 
began to declare itself? The whole kingdom seemed 
inspired with sudden zeal. All would be apostles and 
missionaries. Even intendants and commandants of 
provinces undertook to convert men's souls, and being 
charged with plenty of alms and favours of all sorts for 
such as they succeeded in converting, they thought 



92 YEARLY DEMOLITION 

they must needs pay their court the better, the longer 
the lists of converts they furnished. The greater num- 
ber of bishops, in their eager flattery of the king ; the 
ecclesiastics of the second order, in their eagerness to 
gratify the bishops, or perhaps that they might attract 
notice at court, and thus compensate for their want 
of connexions there, made no scruple at outbidding 
one another in purchasing conversions, and receiving 
simulated or precipitate abjurations ; and not only did 
the intolerance and fanaticism which a wise police, and 
the dread of recalling past disorders, had till then hardly 
restrained, break down every such obstacle, but ambi- 
tion, selfishness, and vanity, all mingled in the scene. 
God, it was said, could make all means promote his 
purposes, and the doctrines of the Jesuits then prevailed 
over the opposite system, not because that bodv reallv 
enjoyed all the credit that has been ascribed to them, 
but because those doctrines sanctioned that precipita- 
tion, and hence, at so singular a conjuncture, went to 
confirm and extend their credit, 

Protestant churches were now demolished from time 
to time, in compliance with orders from the court, 
proceeding on judgments pronounced by the commis- 
sioners appointed to arbitrate between the two parties : 
for it must be borne in mind that the commissioners for 
both religions sent into the provinces to repair infrac- 
tions of the edict of Xantes, still exercised their func- 
tions. The commission they received at the commence- 
ment of the king's administration bore : ' that the king's 
object was to promote mutual peace among his subjects 
by seeing to the observance of the edicts.' They were 
instructed ' to receive the complaints both of the Re- 
formed and of the Roman Catholics, to answer them as 
thev might find the king's service and the tranquillitv 



OF PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 93 

of his subjects require, and to transmit to the privy 
council the cases they could not agree upon/ The de- 
cisions of the council in these cases were at first highly 
equitable, but a practice quite incompatible with justice 
gradually crept in. The greater number of commis- 
sioners for the Roman Catholics being privy councillors, 
they undertook to report to the council the questions on 
which they could not agree with their fellow commis- 
sioners, so that the council must have found itself com- 
pelled almost invariably to give way to representations 
made viva voce without any opposite statement. These 
questions, as they mainly concerned the establishment 
of Protestant worship at different places, furnished pre- 
texts to the Roman Catholic commissioners for the 
yearly demolition of some of the Protestant churches. 
Although even of such disputed cases, unequally de- 
fended as they were, some were decided impartially, 
still, during this new course of procedure, the merest 
pretexts sufficed for litigating the right to have public 
worship as claimed by the Protestants in various dis- 
tricts, so that from the commencement of 1679, twenty 
two of their churches were pulled down, and in the 
course of some years after that, many more shared the 
same fate. 

In this manner did commissions, issued twenty years 
before in a spirit of the strictest equity, change their 
very nature on devotion gaining a greater ascendancy 
in the monarch's heart, and become the most effectual 
of all instruments in ruining the Calvinists. The pro- 
vincial intendants, likewise, sought to detect the Protes- 
tants of their generalities in some act of disobedience 
to the new laws as they were successively promulgated, 
so as to find a plea for pulling down the church in 
which any such contravention was alleged to have taken 



94 RAPID SUCCESSION 

place, whether it really constituted an infraction of the 
law or not. Meanwhile crowds of the Reformed were 
interdicted from all the outward exercises of their re- 
ligion without anything being done for their instruction 
in ours, and their churches were demolished without 
any inducements being employed to bring them back 
to the communion of Rome. Thus did people rush on 
all sides into this enterprise with the precipitation so 
natural to Frenchmen, with the heedlessness which has 
so often led, in France, to the failure even of the best 
designs, and, lastly and chiefly, with an eager and 
jealous endeavour to outrun each other in humouring 
the piety of their prince. Every man set about de- 
vising some such prompt measures as might entitle him, 
in the king's eyes, to the praise of having gained an 
advantage over heresy. In a matter which called for 
great wisdom, much patience, good examples, and sim- 
ple encouragements, nothing was thought of but bri- 
bery, seduction, and guile. The illusion was kept up 
by an apparent success, and from the year 1680, the 
assembly of the clergy spoke in terms of gratitude and 
commendation only. They flattered themselves with 
the prospect of seeing heresy expire at the feet of the 
king. The object was everywhere one and the same, 
but as yet, there was neither fixed purpose nor settled 
plan. "Wishing to make themselves of consequence, the 
entendants, each according to the peculiar circumstances 
of his own locality, proposed the revocation of this or 
that particular privilege, and to each petition thus ori- 
ginated, the court replied by a general declaration. 
One craved that the reformed might no longer be 
authorised to act as appraisers ; another that Protestant 
women might be interdicted from acting as midwives, 
because, as was said, not holding the necessity of bap- 



OF OPPRESSIVE MEASURES. 95 

tism, they do not dip the new-born infants in water, 
and give no notice of their condition to women in 
jeopardy. One suggested that all the new converts 
should enjoy three years delay in paying their debts ; 
another, that they should have two years exemption 
from the tax called tattle, while it should be doubled on 
the Huguenots ; another, that all distinction of pews 
should be removed from Protestant churches, leaving 
nothing but bare benches, so that discomfort and con- 
fusion of ranks might keep the gentry away ; another, 
that what was called the personal exercises of the feudal 
lords in their castles, should be reduced in number.* 

This vicious precipitation led to still greater severi- 
ties than was at first supposed. As in case of becoming 
a convert, a procurator or notary found his chambers 
deserted ; if we look to justice only, said an intendant, 
when consulted on the subject, the rest ought to be 
allowed to follow their business, and be obliged to 
supply the wants of the new convert, and make up to 
him what he has lost ; but looking only to what is best 
for religion, all the rest ought to be debarred from 
practising, and on such reasoning they were all de- 
prived of their professional livelihood ! 

We shall be pardoned, no doubt, for scrutinizing with 
the utmost minuteness, and with the fairness to be 
expected from an historian who has no fault to find 
with Louis XIV's piety, the causes which led to the 
failure of this enterprise, a failure attested by above a 
million of Protestants being found existing in France at 
this day. We do good service, then, to our king and 
country, while we distinguish the means by which the 

* The objects and effects of these various measures, are admirably 
exposed in the works entituled La Politique du Clergi de France, and 
Les Dernier s efforts, S[c. Vide Introduction. — Ed. 



96 BLOW AT PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 

work of conversion was really promoted, from the faults 
to which its failure may be ascribed. Amid the multi- 
tude of laws dictated by a dangerous precipitation, some 
thwart instead of promoting the object for which they 
were passed. 

Mixed marriages had held a high place, for more 
than a century, among the means employed to favour 
the dominant religion, and assuredly that religion could 
not fail to gain by Protestants being allowed to enter 
Roman Catholic families, since the favoured religion 
will ever be voluntarily embraced by children of such 
marriages. Though the doctrine maintained by the 
church on this point has sometimes varied, her doctors 
have never proscribed such marriages, except when the 
Roman Catholic happens not to be the religion of the 
state. But as people now exposed themselves to the 
risk of false conversions, distrust mingled with their 
zeal, and it was thought necessary to forbid new con- 
verts marrying into families that remained in error, lest 
domestic privacy should be taken advantage of in re- 
proaching them for their weakness. Nothing more clearly 
shows the mischievous effects of the hurry we have 
remarked. It reduced people to the necessity of ex- 
changing innocent measures whose success had been 
proved, for others which were inefficient. 

Disrespect, too, was apparently cast on the very re- 
ligion which the whole nation was called to adopt. A 
provincial intendant having proposed that the fathers 
and mothers of children who had become converts, 
should be obliged to provide an alimentary annuity for 
each such child, it was stipulated on 17th June, 1681, 
that children might change their religion at the age of 
seven, and to this new law there were clauses added 
which went utterly to destroy parental authority. Was 



THE INTENDANTS EXCEED THEIR FUNCTIONS. 97 

not this making a farce of conversion ? Was it not an 
attack on the rights of parental authority by affording 
ill- disposed children a pretext for evading that authority, 
and while attempting to make sure of religion, was it 
not a violation of morality under every point of view in 
which the question could be contemplated ? The law, 
too, was useless as well as odious ; applying to persons 
in easy circumstances only, and for such, previous mea- 
sures sufficed. But the truth is, in vain do we look for 
any uniform plan applicable to the whole nation, amid 
the mass of statutes proceeding, one after another, from 
the mutual rivalry of intendants, dictated . in the first 
instance by a regard to local circumstances, and then 
extended to the kingdom at large. 

A favourable reception, however, was not always given 
to the proposals thus suggested by men struggling to 
outrun each other in their zeal for religion, and eager- 
ness to gratify the king. The court would censure, at 
times, the zeal of some indiscreet intendant when it led 
him to exceed the limits of his authority in the publica- 
tion of provisional orders in his province, though afraid 
at the same time to disavow his acts, lest the obstinacy 
of those who would not be converted might be confirmed 
by an appearance of retreat. 

Many ambitious men, on this occasion, notwithstand- 
ing the intelligence and vigilance of the government, 
arrogated to themselves more power than that govern- 
ment ever gave them. An universal departure from the 
regular course of the laws, followed in the train of an 
excess of governmental power in the hands of the sub- 
altern authorities. The success that attended their 
premature decisions secured for them the support of the 
king and his council, and we may perhaps consider this 
era in the home administration of France as most to be 



98 THE INTENDANTS EXCEED THEIR FUNCTIONS. 

remarked, on account of the extraordinary accession of 
authority it brought to the intendants — a body of public 
functionaries already much dreaded. We shall find 
them invested ere long with an almost irresponsible and 
universal jurisdiction. They were expected to convince 
men's understandings, affect their hearts, and, in short, 
work all the miracles of conversions. 



CHAPTER X. 

Chateauneuf betrays his post as guardian of religious tole- 
ration. — Colbert opposes the new system in vain, — 
Character and policy of Louvois. — His immense influ- 
ence. — He determines to engross to himself the honour 
of converting the reformed, on finding the king irreclaim- 
ably devoted to that project. — Character and cruelty of 
Marillac, Intendant of Poitou. — Hesitation and dupli- 
city of the court. — Character of Ruvigny. — His impru- 
dence leads Mme. de Maintenon to profess opposition to 
the reformed. — Her selfishness and avarice. — Favours 
to new converts made a pretext for persecutions. — Du- 
plicity of Louvois. — The King hears of the persecutions, 
but takes no measures to put a stop to them, until the 
reformed fly in crowds, and call forth the public sym- 
pathy of England. — Marillac recalled. — D'Aguesseau's 
reprobation of the conduct of the court. 

At this time there were four secretaries of state ; the 
main divisions of whose departments severally were, 
War, the Marine, Foreign affairs, and the general 
affairs of the Pretended Reformed Religion. Most of 
those who, in this reign, successively filled these great 
offices, laboured to extend their authority, and to give 
increased weight to their administration. The Marquis 
of Chateauneuf alone, in the vain hope of rising in the 
king's favour, did his best to ruin the department, which 
f 2 



loo 



COLBERT FALLS INTO DISFAVOUR. 



was in some sort the heritage of his family, and to 
destroy that beautiful part of the internal administration 
of the kingdom, which was charged with the mainte- 
nance of religious toleration. Of this he soon had 
cause to lament that a shadow only survived. 

He had not even the honour of those imaginary suc- 
cesses, which satisfied for a time the piety of the king. 
The secretary for ecclesiastical affairs was the first who 
shared with him in the concerns of proselytism ; and 
this connexion became indispensable, in proportion as 
the conversions increased. Colbert was now at the 
head of the Marine, the superintendance of public 
buildings, the comptroller general's office, the king's 
household, the city of Paris, and the clergy; but this 
last branch of his vast public functions he had relin- 
quished in favour of Seignelai, his son, who had obtained 
a grant of it in reversion. Colbert far from approved 
what was now doing, and as long as his influence pre- 
dominated in the privy council, toleration was respected 
there. But he was in no condition to make head 
against a torrent which carried all before it. Attempt- 
ing an unequal struggle with intrigue and calumnies, he 
fell into a state of disfavour, bordering on disgrace, and 
became a prey to disappointments, which apparently 
hastened his death.* 

Some remains of a correspondence which now com- 
menced between Seignelai and Chateauneuf, are to be 
found in the public records. The laws affecting the 
new converts were the work of Seignelai ; those which 
chiefly contemplated the reformed, proceeded from 
Chateauneuf ; and though these limits were not always 
very strictly observed, no rivalry disturbed the co-ope- 
ration of the two young secretaries. 

* He died 6th September, 1683. Vide Note C. 



POLICY OF LOUVOIS. 101 

Louvois,* who contributed so much to the glories of 
this reign, sorrowfully beheld a total change in the 
aspect of the court, and seemed to fear that other 
changes might result from this nascent devotion. Let 
us distrust ourselves, however, in censuring such minis- 
ters. Let us not forget that up to this period, the per- 
petual emulation of Louvois with all his colleagues, had 
promoted the greatness and prosperity of the kingdom. 
First, he made every endeavour to divert the king from 
occupations of so saddening an influence. The love of 
conquests, a taste for magnificence, and all kinds of 
intellectual recreation attached Louis to Madame de 
Montespan ; and so long as that haughty but fascina- 
ting woman influenced his government, Louis reigned 
ostentatiouslv, but gloriously. His name had become 
the terror of Europe, which nevertheless took his court 
for its model. Louvois sought to bring him again under 
the influence of these brilliant qualities, and in the 
course of frequent ruptures between the lovers, for both 
were tormented with ever- returning scruples of con- 
science, he strove to perpetuate, not their devotion, but 
their love. Two children were born amid these alter- 
nations of love and devotion, and as they could no longer 
be left to the mere will and pleasure of Madame de 
Maintenon, they were confided to Louvois and his in- 
tendant. When the two lovers happened to be sepa- 
rated, he contrived occasions for their seeing each 
other, even at the risk of displeasing the king, in so far 
as a man who still loves, could be supposed angry at 
such endeavours. Let us attend to Madame de Main- 
tenon's own words. ' M. de Louvois/ she says, * has 
contrived to secure for Madam de Montespan a tete-d- 

* For some notices respecting Louvois, vide Note D. 



102 MME. DE MAINTENON'S FEARS. 

tete with the king. He has been for some time sus- 
pected of planning this interview ; his proceedings were 
watched ; caution was observed with respect to occa- 
sions, his measures were to have been defeated, but so 
well were they contrived, that the snare succeeded at 
last/ She writes word 23d August, 1680 : ■ This ex- 
planation has confirmed the king in his purpose : I have 
congratulated him on the conquest of so formidable an 
enemy ; he vows that M. de Louvois is more to be 
dreaded than the Prince of Orange/ But she after- 
wards writes thus : ' She has made up matters with the 
king ; this is the doing of Louvois ; she has forgotten 
nothing by which she might injure me.' 

The reader will see in the Recollections of Caylus, 
how much cause Mme. de Maintenon had for dreading 
the coalition of Mme. de Montespan, the Duke of Roche- 
foucauld, and M. de Louvois. * Their grand object,' 
she says, * was the ruin of Mme. de Maintenon, by 
giving the king a distaste for her, but this they at- 
tempted when too late. The esteem and regard he had 
for her were already too deeply rooted. * * * I 
am not aware what were the particulars of this cabal. 
Mme. de Maintenon spoke to me about it very slightly, 
and, as a person would do, who can forget injuries with- 
out being the less conscious of having really received 
them/ 

It was now that Louvois reached an almost absolute 
authority. His father held the highest place in the 
magistracy, his brother held the same place among the 
clergy ; he himself was at the head of the war depart- 
ment, and one of his daughters had married the Duke 
de Rochefoucauld, whom Louis XIV. regarded as a 
favourite. At Metz and Brisac he established the 
courts which were afterwards to deprive the princes on 



LOUVOIS' AMBITION. 103 

that frontier of part of their estates. Colbert, long his 
rival, was now in disfavour, yet the king was engrossed 
with one object, in regard to which Louvois acted no 
part. The man who in the near prospect of a disgrace 
brought on him, as he thought, by the slow revenge of 
Mme.de Maintenon, said, s I know not if he will be satis- 
fied with my removal from the office I hold, or if he will 
send me to prison, nor do I care, since in any event I 
shall no longer be master,' calmly looked on as the two 
young secretaries who had the charge of religious 
affairs, took advantage of the king becoming almost 
exclusively devoted to these, to insinuate themselves 
into his confidence. But no sooner did he perceive the 
impossibility of overcoming this new humour, than he 
not only found means to mix himself up with the con- 
versions, but succeeded at last in getting into his own 
hands the project of the conversion of the kingdom at 
large. 

This might well be regarded as no easy enterprise, 
under a prince who was careful that each of his minis- 
ters should confine himself within the proper limits of 
the department committed to him. Those who, from 
being invested with the administration of certain pro- 
vinces, were of necessity connected with the affairs of 
the reformed, had to decide, in so far as these were 
concerned, only the particular cases that came before 
them. The secretary of state, to whom was committed 
the charge of their general affairs, and only he, was 
empowered to make general regulations. Circumstances 
now favoured the ambition of Louvois as follows. 

Poitou was one of the provinces in his department, 
and Marillac was his intendant there. The latter was 
grandson of Michael de Marillac, keeper of the seals, 
and author of that frightful compound of tyranny called 



104 MARILLAC — HIS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. 

the code Michault, a code considered infamous and 
proscribed by the public horror, even under the minis- 
try of Cardinal Richelieu. The intendant Marillac, 
having lost his father in early life, was the only member 
of the family who had done any thing to repair its 
fortunes, when depressed by the punishment of the 
Marischal and the disgrace of the keeper of the seals. 
His hopes went even to restore the family to its former 
rank in the army and magistracy. One of his sons was 
already acquiring distinction at the bar, while another 
served in the army, and this supplied a new motive for 
courting the favour of Louvois. Nourished in the 
maxims of his family, combining an hereditary violence 
of temper with resentment at a long series of disgraces, 
and a man of boundless ambition, Marillac restrained 
himself as long as the zeal for conversions seemed but 
a transient effervescence, and as long as Louvois him- 
self took no part in them. In Poitou, a province 
swarming with Huguenots, he conducted himself so as 
to gain the regard alike of Roman Catholics and Pro- 
testants. 

But when, in 1 680, he observed the king himself be- 
come a devot, when he saw his fellow intendants pique 
themselves on putting forth all the fervour of the apos- 
tolate, he began to alter his course, and to compensate 
for the lateness of his zeal by its fierceness. First, by 
means of a moderate sum of money sent him by Pelis- 
son, he effected a considerable number of pretended 
conversions. The sum being small, he received the 
warm praise of Louvois, and was encouraged to pro- 
ceed. 

After the minutest research, we have failed to dis- 
cover Marillac's letters, but Louvois' replies are still 
preserved at the war- office, and they throw light on the 



BILLETTINGS IN POITOU. 105 

most important facts. Nevertheless after examining 
one of the most remarkable of them, dated the 18th 
of March 1681, we must leave it for the reader to say 
whether the intend ant, or the minister, was the person 
who suggested the terrible means of conversion, ap- 
parently authorized by the king in that communication . 

' I have had the honour to read to the king the letters 
you were at the pains to write to me on the 5th and 1 2th 
instant, and by which his majesty learns with much 
satisfaction, that many converts continue to be made 
in your department. His majesty well knows how you 
labour to augment them, and desires you will continue 
thus to apply yourself, using the same methods that 
have succeeded hitherto. He charges M. Colbert to 
see how far the public burdens may be lightened in 
favour of future converts, so as to reduce the number 
of the religionists. He has given orders for the march 
of a regiment of cavalry into Poitou, early in Novem- 
ber next, with injunctions to station themselves at the 
places you will be careful to point out in proper time, 
and his majesty approves of the greater number of 
dragoons and officers being billetted on the Protestants, 
but he is not of opinion that all ought to be billetted 
thus ; for example, of the twenty- six maitres composing 
a company, should the religionists, in case of an equitable 
proportioning of them, have to maintain ten, you may 
send them twenty, and the whole of these twenty should 
be quartered on the richest of the religionists, on the 
pretext, that when on a given place the troops are not 
so numerous as that each of the inhabitants should have 
some, it is proper that the poor should be exempted 
from the charge of maintaining them, and that that 
burden should be laid on the rich. 

' His majesty has deemed it right, also, to cause to be 

F 5 



106 ARTIFICES EMPLOYED 

expedited the ordinance I now send, exempting converts 
from having soldiers billetted on them during the space 
of two vears. This exemption may be followed by 
many conversions, in places were troops are quartered, 
provided you see to its being properly executed, and 
that in the repartition of the troops passing through 
such places, the greater number shall always be quar- 
tered on the richest of the said religion, but as I have 
explained above, his majesty desires that orders to 'this 
effect be given orally by you, or your sub-delegates, 
to the local mayors and magistrates, without informing 
them that his majesty's intention, in this, is to compel 
the Huguenots into conversion, (violent er les Huguenots 
a $e convertir) but merely explaining that you give 
these orders from having received information that the 
wealthy religionists of those quarters have sufficient 
credit to get themselves exempted to the prejudice of 
the poor.' 

One sees, from this letter, with what circumspection 
the king permitted this odious procedure to be em- 
ployed, We shall find more of it in the sequel, and 
events will assist us in disentangling the artifice which 
the minister employs here, and continues to the last, 
for authorizing persecution by secret orders, while 
he allows it be seen, when it falls in his way, how little 
they were to the liking of the king. 

Though first transmitted secretly to the intendant 
of Poitou, the ordinance was generally promulgated 
about a month afterwards throughout the kingdom. 
Proceeding from the department of Louvois, and as a 
simple military order, he contrived to make what was 
apparently a very simple boon in favour of future con- 
verts, namely two years exemption from having sol- 
diers quartered on them, the most effective oi all in- 



TO CONCEAL PERSECUTION. 107 

struments in promoting this revolution, and in bringing 
it under the sole department of war. 

This ordinance was published the 11th of April, 1681, 
and such was the origin of the violent proceedings 
which took place four years after throughout the whole 
country, and were called the dragonades, the conversions 
by billetting, or the booted mission. 

Let us now cast a glance over the letters of Madam 
de Maintenon during the period at which we have now 
arrived. On the 24th of August 1681, she writes thus : — 

* The king begins to think seriously about his salvation 
and that of his subjects. If God preserve him to us, 
there will soon be but one religion in his kingdom. 
This is M. de Louvois' opinion, and him I can 
more willing believe on the subject than M. Col- 
bert, who is always taken up about the finances, and 
hardly bestows a thought on religion.' 

Now that the terrible Louvois began to act in this 
matter, such was the ease with which it was supposed 
that the conversions would be effected. Mme. de 
Maintenon adds other things not less remarkable, and 
which bring some curious anecdotes to light. Ruvigny, 
then Deputy General of the Protestants at court, would 
often allow his zeal to outrun his discretion. ' Ruvigny/ 
exclaims Mme. de Maintenon, * is intractable : he has 
informed the king that I was born a Calvinist, and 
continued such until my coming to court. This com- 
pels me to approve things that are exceedingly repug- 
nant to my feelings.' And in another letter she says : — 

* Ruvigny would have me to be still a Calvinist at heart/ 
The terms she employs are ever full of meaning, and 
Ruvigny est intraitable, is no unmeaning expression 
coming from her. He had aimed a deadly thrust at 
the only person who could protect his party. He had 



108 ruvigny's indiscretion. 

denounced her to the king as a Calvinist, and as a 
person capable of sacrificing her religion to her political 
interests, and he cast this slur on her just as she 
sought to make a conquest of the king's affections, by 
giving herself out for a saint, a zealous Catholic, a person 
utterly without ambition. This charge she could nullify 
only, as she said, by seeming to approve of the per- 
secution of those whom she could have wished to de- 
fend. ' This compels me,' says she, ' to approve of 
things that are utterly repugnant to my feelings.' To 
her it was a critical moment. Mme. de Montespan 
began to view her with extreme jealousy ; the king 
seemed to enjoy no conversation but hers. Accordingly 
it was in a sort of frenzy that she devoted herself to 
the project of converting the Calvinists. 'Mme. 
d'Aubigne,' she writes to her brother, ' ought surely 
to convert some one of our young relations.' She 
sends word to another : ' I only am to be seen taking 
some Huguenot to the churches.' To another : 'Con- 
vert yourselves, like so many others ; convert your- 
selves with God only ; convert yourselves, I tell you, 
as you like best, but, in one word, convert yourselves/ 
She was the first to solicit lettres de cachet, for the re- 
moval of her young relations from the influence of an 
education in the principles of the family. f Violence 
alone won't do,' she writes to her brother, and adds : 
1 As for the other conversions, you cannot be too active 
in regard to them, but take care not to corrupt people's 
morals in preaching the true doctrine to them.' The 
apostle must have been a strange one indeed who 
needed such advice ! In the recesses of her own heart 
she preserved kindly feelings towards her wretched 
brethren, and those feelings found scope at length for 
their display ; but that time was as yet distant, and she 



LOUIS THE GREAT, A DUPE. 109 

felt it was necessary to sacrifice everything in order to 
advance herself in the good opinion of the king. 

Here, then, we behold Louis XIV. duped even by an 
intimate friend, and by her, too, who had done most to 
bring him under the influence of these devout senti- 
ments ! 

How deserving of the contemplation of after ages 
such a picture as this ! How much matter for profound 
thought does it suggest ! Louis XIV. already saluted 
as Louis the Great, an object of admiration and of 
envy to the whole of Europe, governing his kingdom in 
his own person assisted by able ministers —taking plea- 
sure in forming worthy successors to those great men, 
acquainted with the position of every court, with the 
policy of all their sovereigns, surrounded by a polished 
court and an enlightened nation, himself a pattern of all 
politeness, studious in searching out and conferring 
honour on everv kind of merit ; and, at the same time, 
deceived in his own council and his own court, duped in 
regard to his most important interests by his dearest 
confidents, inaccessible to the complaints of two mil- 
lions of his subjects ; his throne open only to the im- 
positions of selfishness, to the shouts of fanaticism, and 
to the Syren voice of flattery. Let us complete the 
picture. Granting all this, the prince will yet be found 
to preserve his greatness intact ; and of him, as of 
Titus, it may be said, that 'no evils were tolerated 
under his reign but such as he was ignorant of/ 

Another letter belonging to this period, is still more 
prejudicial to the favourite's memory, and its import- 
ance is not diminished by the elucidation we are 
attempting. The favour she enjoyed does not appear to 
have been beyond the reach of all reverse. She met 
with frequent disappointments, and in the uncertainty of 



110 BASE MOTIVES TO PERSECUTION. 

her prospects, was no less occupied about augmenting 
her property, than in courting the royal favour. She 
writes thus to the director of her conscience : — 'I am 
becoming the most selfish of creatures, and think only 
about increasing my fortune.' It was now that she put 
her credit and protection to sale, and sold them occa- 
sionallv for her brother's advantage. After doing what 
is now called a job, (une affaire,) she adds, Oct. 2, 1681 : 
' Eight hundred thousand livres which you will receive, 
are a consolation to me. You could not do better than 
invest them in the purchase of an estate in Poitou. The 
flight of the Huguenots has made land so cheap there, 
that it may be had for next to nothing ; ' — and, so, for 
why should we now be afraid to speak out, such base 
motives had but too much influence on the long course 
of persecution inflicted on the Huguenots, from the times 
of Diana of Poictiers, down to a period almost touching 
our own. Often was it for the mere purpose of making 
off with the fortunes of others that so many men and 
women of all conditions, during two successive cen- 
turies, took part in those persecutions. It is true that 
Mme. de Maintenon, singularly gifted as she was with 
that quick sense of propriety and intuitive sagacity, 
which enabled her at once to perceive and appreciate 
her personal position, and which are rarer advantages 
than one would suppose, lost no time in ridding herself 
of such base engagements. Some months later she 
wrote to her brother: — 'The more of a certain 
kind of favour one enjoys in this country, the less are 
they in a condition to accomplish a certain kind of 
business. 9 

Thus two motives, both alike kept secret, led the 
King's confident, the woman who brought back his soul 
to God, to wink at the persecution now begun in Poitou. 



PERSECUTION CHECKED BY THE KING. Ill 

Nothing more, apparently, was meant than a grant in 
favour of the new converts of certain privileges and ex- 
emptions. Beneath this veil, persecution was concealed 
from the King, so that he knew nothing of the fact, 
that all Protestant families were, in their own houses, 
delivered over to the unbridled license of troops of 
soldiers. Long lists of converts were presented to him, 
and every Gazette contained articles referring to the re- 
turn to the church of six, seven, or eight hundred con- 
verts. These delusive lists led people to suppose that 
this grand affair would be accomplished far more easily 
than was at first imagined. ' If God preserve the 
King/ wrote Mme. de Maintenon, ' in twenty years 
time, there will be no more Huguenots ; I shall will- 
ingly charge myself with all of them.' As we proceed, 
we find this illusion gather force, and men's minds be- 
come more and more heated, until they were at length 
convinced that the conversion of the kingdom would be 
completed in a month. Forthwith some of the Intend - 
ants far exceeded their orders. The new ordinance 
furnished a pretext for every sort of violence. That 
military licentiousness, which even the strictest discipline 
can with difficulty repress, and which no sooner escapes 
restraint, than it runs into barbarity, was let loose 
against the Calvinists. But the complaints of these 
wretched creatures reached at length the ears of the 
King, and he lost no time in severely reprimanding 
those who had exceeded his orders. Louvois wrote to 
Mariliac : ' I transmit you a memorial presented to the 
King by a deputy from the inhabitants of the town of 
Chatelleraut, from which his majesty learned with 
surprise the behaviour you permitted the troops of 
horse quartered in the said town of of Chatelleraut, to 
indulge in your presence. Whereupon his majesty has 



112 INSTRUCTIONS SENT BY LOUVOIS 

deemed it fit to command me to inform you that he de- 
sires you will state how far the allegations of the me- 
morial are true, and that, in future, you prevent the 
troops from committing' acts of violence in the quarters 
they occupy in the houses of persons of the Pretended 
Reformed Religion, and in these his majesty desires 
that they be kept in the same state of discipline as in 
those of the Roman Catholics. 

' It is his desire, also, that you abstain from threaten- 
ing those of the said religion who do not choose to be- 
come converts ; as it by no means suits his service that 
a person of your character should hold discourses at 
such variance with the execution of the edicts enjoyed 
by the religionists in the kingdom. 

' You may perceive from the above, that although 
his majesty infinitely desires that the conversions should 
continue, and does not object to the same expenditure 
as hitherto, his will is that you so manage matters as to 
take from the religionists every legitimate pretext for 
complaining that they are violently dealt with, or me- 
naced, when they have no wish to change their religion. 

' With respect to the troops, his majesty desires you 
to conduct yourself in superintending the quartering of 
the soldiers, so as to remove any appearance of affect- 
ing to overwhelm the religionists, but only to appear 
desirous of preventing the powerful from throwing the 
burden of providing quarters off their own shoulders, on 
those of the poor ; that you maintain such strictness of 
discipline among the troopers, that no serious harm be 
done to the religionists ; that you receive their com^ 
plaints when presented, and give them no cause to say 
that you deny them all justice, and deliver them over to 
the discretion of the troops.' 

On the 20th of June, 1 681, he writes to the Intendant 



TO THE PROVINCIAL INTENDANTS. 113 

of Limoges: — 'Annexed you will find the complaints 
transmitted to the King by the Pretended Reformed of 
the city of Angouleme, from which you will see what 
treatment they have had — treatment which , if their aver- 
ments be true, is contrary to his majesty's intentions, 
in respect both of the outrages inflicted by the troops, 
and the exclusive quartering of them on the inhabitants 
of the Pretended Reformed Religion. It is his majesty's 
command that I should inform you that he desires you 
to report to him what passed on the above occasion, 
and who the person is who is to blame, in order that by 
the infliction of suitable punishment, matters may be 
restored in future tG their proper condition.' 

No one, doubtless, can imagine that a person like 
Louvois could meditate such an impossibility as con- 
straint without persecution, the maintenance of civil 
liberty amid military licence, and military oppression 
introduced into the privacy of domestic life without the 
commission of excesses and disorders. Is it not mani- 
fest that in order to have the conversion of the Cal- 
vinists secured to himself, and having military means 
only at his disposal, he took advantage of the mistake 
into which the King had been led by the pretended 
facility of the first conversions ? He persuaded himself 
that the Calvinists were so slightly attached to their 
religion, that they would hasten to abjure their faith, 
merely to escape a slight domestic inconvenience ; but 
no sooner did the least whisper of their complaints 
reach the ear of the King than he seems anxiously to 
have sought to restore all things to their former calm. 

He took care that this fatal ordinance, although in- 
tended for the kingdom, should not produce an universal 
ferment, and accordingly sent injunctions to the other 
Intendants not to execute it. 



114 THE PROTESTANTS FLY IN CROWDS. 

But the Protestants were already flying in crowds. 
Emigration, which was suspended by Colbert in 1669, 
recommenced. The Protestant states vied with each 
other in offering an asylum to the emigrants. On the 
18th of July, of that year, (1681) an order in council 
was published in London offering privileges to all who 
might choose to take refuge in England ; the news of 
this reached even the King's ears, and the Intendant 
Marillac was instantly superseded. 

This general statement we shall confirm by an au- 
thority of great weight — that of the Chancellor D'Agues- 
seau. He was then very young, but had the advantage 
of being educated by his father, whose life he wrote, 
and who was Intendant of Languedoc. He thus ex- 
presses himself: — ' The court was long content to fol- 
low my father's maxims ; and instead of throwing con- 
fusion into his procedure by a dangerous precipitation, 
I believe it was wise enough to let matters alone. It 
even disapproved of the proceedings of one or two In- 
tendants, who by way of signalising their zeal, arro- 
gated to themselves the very uncanonical mission of 
converting Huguenots by harassing them with the 
arbitrary quartering of troops, and then making it a 
merit for the soldiers to practise vexations which in 
any other case would have subjected them to punish- 
ment, One of these Intendants was reprimanded, and 
the other was recalled — the disgrace following which 
could not be altogether effaced by the distinction con- 
ferred on his name and good qualities by his being pro- 
moted to a place in the council. 5 



CHAPTER XL 

Zeal for the conversions declines in 1682. — Assembly of 
the clergy of that year, and their rupture with the 
Pope. — Their fraternal invitation to the Reformed to 
return to the Roman Catholic church. — The new con- 
verts persecuted under the law against the Relapsed, and 
prevented from emigrating by that prohibiting emigra- 
tion. — Character of M. Bdville and his policy in Poitou. 
— Secret rise of a doctrine favouring extorted devotion, 
afterwards widely professed in France. — Its keenest 
supporter, the Jesuit, La Chaise. — The King and court 
become more and more superstitious. — Louis marries 
Mme. de Maintenon. — Mistakes respecting that event. 

The zeal for conversions seemed now for a moment to 
decline, and the most secret orders from the court were 
no longer marked by the same violence. Louvois 
writes thus on June 16, 1682 : ■ The King desires that 
religious differences shall no longer disqualify young 
men for admission into the companies of cadets, but 
that all who offer shall be admitted without distinction.' 
Some provincial functionaries who continued to con- 
duct themselves in a violent manner, were reprimanded 
anew. 

There was held that year the famous assembly of the 
clergy, which declared itself opposed to the maxims of 
the Ultramontanists, in so far as these attributed om- 
nipotence to the Pope. Its decisions produced an open 



] 16 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY. 

rupture between the courts of France and Rome. But 
the clergy were desirous, at the same time, to bequeath 
to posterity a public monument of their watchful regard 
for the church's true interests. They addressed an ex- 
hortation to the religionists at large, urging the injus- 
tice of their reproaches against the church of Rome, 
and inviting them to return to their mother's bosom.* 
This exhortation was to be solemnly transmitted to all 
the consistories. The King wrote to the bishops, and 
caused the intendants to be written to, with the view of 
taking common measures for giving the utmost effect 
to this project; he counselled the bishops to deal 
gently with the people, and to use no force but that of 
reason, while the Intendants were enjoined to see that 
nothing was done in contravention of the edicts in fa- 
vour of the Reformed. 

Meanwhile, no sooner was Marillac recalled, than the 
poor creatures who had abjured in order to escape per- 
secution, and whose names had swelled the pretended 
lists of new converts, thought it a matter of course that 
their restoration to freedom was implied in their oppres- 
sor's punishment. They were fain to return to the 
Protestant service, but the laws against the relapsed 
were still in force. They attempted to escape from 
these by leaving France, but were then met by the laws 
against emigration. Thus they were caught between 
two traps. And here we would particularly remark, 
that so far from any fixed plan having been prepared 
for the ruin of the Reformed, that great revolution was 
singly to be attributed to the fortuitous concurrence of 
these two enactments, both recent, and both revived 
under circumstances quite foreign to those under which 
they were first announced. 

* Vide Appendix V. 



BAVILLE SUCCEEDS MARILLAC. 117 

Hardly had Marillac's successor set foot in the Poitou, 
than he became the first example of a person in his 
office being invested with the sovereign power which 
was so often bestowed on intendants afterwards, and by 
which they judged, without appeal, this double offence 
of relapse and attempted evasion, now first charged 
against the new converts as a serious crime. This 
successor w T as M. Baville, a man who became famous 
in that revolution. His family w T as connected with that 
of Louvois, by every tie of friendship and mutual obli- 
gation, and he was regarded at that time as a good 
natured and moderate person. But his moderation 
consisted in having recourse to terror rather than actual 
punishment ; he commenced prosecutions against the 
relapsed and the fugitives, which he dropped on the 
parties shewing that they repented, and even when 
repentance came late, he procured for them the legal 
restoration of their forfeited property. 

It is to this period that we may trace a secret doctrine 
which arose out of the concurrence of all these un- 
looked-for circumstances, and which, although almost 
universally repudiated by the clergy of a later period, 
was, soon after its appearance, adopted by nearly the 
whole of that body in France. It had its sole founda- 
tion in the severe and uniform execution of these two 
new laws. This doctrine which was adopted, reasoned 
upon, and studied, some years later, by certain bishops 
of celebrity, all whose writings we have recovered, though 
none of them dared commit them to publication, differs 
in some points from the ancient intolerance of the bar- 
barous ages. The question no longer turned on burn- 
ing, slaying by massacre, and thus extenninating 
heretics. Apparently there was less cruelty and less 
fanaticism ; but why exterminate people now no longer 



118 EXTORTED CONFORMITY APPROVED. 

dreaded, and who, it was thought, would easily be in- 
duced to return to the Church, and then be prevented 
from leaving it, just as sheep are first driven into a 
fold and then confined in it by fear ? 

1 Let us but get them committed,' said they, ' be it 
by seduction or by fear, to certain acts of catholicity, 
and the law against the relapsed will authorize us to 
hold them bound to practice these for their whole lives ; 
should they wish to escape into countries where their 
religion is free, then the law against emigration will 
prevent them.' Thus without giving themselves either 
the time or the trouble to instruct those whom they 
wished to bring back to the bosom of the church, 
people adopted it as an established principle, that re- 
ligion and the state were equally interested in being 
content with the conversions such as they were ; and 
that the bishops ought to wink at sacrilegious acts, per- 
petually committed by persons forced to commit them 
against their consciences. ' Their children/ it was 
said, ' will in the end be brought up in the practices 
of the true religion ; and should we succeed in extend- 
ing the process throughout the whole kingdom, in as 
much as every external symbol of Calvinism will be 
abolished, the succeeding generations will be effectu- 
ally converted, and all France will exhibit but one 
flock and one shepherd.' 

There is no doubt that the keenest apostle of this 
doctrine was the Jesuit, La Chaise. It had for its apolo- 
gists and followers all the partisans of that society, and 
was adopted and proscribed by turns, as that order 
was in favour, or sunk into disgrace. But the time 
was not yet come for disclosing so novel a doctrine to 
the king. 

Religion, say rather superstition, had not yet ac- 



APPARENT PIETY OF THE KING AND THE COURT. 119 

quired that command of his heart which it was not long 
in acquiring, and which it finally preserved without 
intermission to the last moment of his reign. Here 
we must stop to remark, how, at this time of irresolu- 
tion, Mme. de Maintenon blamed too rigid a piety ; 
agreed on this point with the confessor himself, com- 
plained that the director of the queen's conscience con- 
ducted that princess in a course fitter for a carmelite 
than a sovereign ; how, in fine, she retarded the king's 
devotion the moment it ceased to be her own work. 
' Mme. the Dauphine,' she writes, ' is now engaged in 
prayer ; her piety has led the king to deep reflections. 
She has made it a matter of conscience to labour for 
the king's conversion. I fear she annoys him with her 
importunity, and may make devotion hateful to him. 
I conjure her to moderate her zeal.' But the queen 
died in 1683, and no sooner does this set the king free 
than we find her redoubling her efforts to hasten the 
decisive moment. We see the favour enjoyed by this 
new mistress, the credit of Father la Chaise, and zeal 
for the conversion of the Calvinists, three things w^hich 
were long inseparable, experience the same vicissitudes, 
advance in one line, and reach their culminating point 
all at once. First, she writes to the superior of a con- 
vent : — ' Be earnest in seeing to prayers being put up 
for the king ; he needs grace more than ever now that 
he is in a condition to which both his inclination and 

habits are opposed Give yourself wholly to 

God .... and despise worldly grandeur.' Three 
months later she writes : — c I am convinced that the 
queen has been supplicating God for the conversion of 
the whole court. That of the king is wonderful. 
Ladies who seemed farthest from such a thing now 
never miss attending church. . . . . Of all our devotes 



120 THE KING PRIVATELY MARRIES 

none goes there so often as Mme. de Montespan. . . . 
Ordinary Sundays are all now as Easter used to be. 
And at length she writes some weeks later still : — Father 
la Chaise gives much satisfaction ; he inspires the king 
with great designs. Ere long, all his subjects will be 
found worshiping God in spirit and in truth/ So true 
is it that the project of converting the Calvinists arose 
from this spirit of devotion alone, that it advanced with 
its progress, and became a fixed and settled purpose 
only when an increased fervour of piety led to this 
clever favourite's marriage. 

Accordingly, I by no means stray from the subject I 
have undertaken to elucidate, while I proceed to prove 
that this marriage was not so long delayed as people 
suppose, and that on becoming a widower, the king 
allowed himself but six months to mourn for his wife. 

Madame de Caylus mentions that in the course of the 
visit to Fountainbleau, which followed the queen's 
demise, the favour enjoyed by Mme. de Maintenon rose 
to its highest pitch. ' I perceived her mind to be so agi- 
tated, that on recalling it to remembrance since, I have 
concluded that it must have been owing to the extreme 
uncertainty of her prospects, fears, and hopes : in one 
word, her heart was not free, and her mind was ex- 
tremely agitated. In order to conceal her various 
movements, and to justify the tears which her domes- 
tics and I sometimes saw her shed, she complained of 
the vapours, and went, as she said, to breathe the fresh 
air of the forest with no one but Mme. de Mont-chev- 
rueil : she went there even at unusual hours' 
What follows, although it does not give the precise date 
of the marriage, leaves no doubt that it took place soon 
after. 

Saint Simon asserts : ' That, about which there can 



MME. DE MAINTENON. 121 

be no doubt, is, that some time after the king's return 
from Fontainebleau, and about the middle of the winter 
following the queen's decease, Father La Chaise said 
mass at midnight : Bontemps, one the four principal 
men in waiting, the most trusted of the four, and at that 
time in attendance, waited on the parties at that mass, 
when the Monarch and Mme. de Maintenon were mar- 
ried in presence of Harley, Archbishop of Paris and 
Diocesan. 

When we turn to her own letters, we find that this 
woman who, up to that time, had recommended her 
brother to practice the strictest economy, now conjured 
him to spend his whole income. In 1 684 she writes : 
' This is a personal adventure which won't bear being 
told.' The letter in which she refuses to make him 
constable, is dated in 1684 ; it was from 1683 that she 
kept him always at a distance ; it was then that the 
project of educating young ladies taken from their Cal- 
vinist families, and assembled first at Ruel, and there- 
after at Noisi, resulted in the magnificent establishment 
of Saint Cyr. Let us read the following letter, which 
must certainly be referred to the month of June, 1684, 
' We are waiting for news about the king. * * * 
He would fain have shared the honour of this conquest 
with M. de Crequi. Peace is the sole object of my 
longings ; never shall I advise the king to anything not 
likely to redound to his glory, yet would people believe 
me, they would be less ambitious, less dazzled with the 
splendour of a victory, and more serious about their sal- 
vation. But it is no business of mine to govern the 
state. My daily prayer to God is, that he will give 
him to know the truth, that he will incline him to love 
peace. Noisi occupies me much, and most agreeably. 
I am anxious to contribute my share in the conversion 

G 



122 ESTABLISHMENT AT NOISI. 

of our separated brethren ; these poor girls will be infi- 
nitely obliged to me both in this world and the next. 
* * * Le Nautre will make quite a charming place 
of my garden. I had hoped to die there, and shall not 
even have the satisfaction of living there.' In fine, it is 
in this year, 1684, that we gain access to the most 
secret deliberations of the king and his ministers, on the 
projects for the general conversion of the reformed. 

All the memoirs of that period, state that the Arch- 
bishop of Paris had certain conferences with the king, and 
on the faith of these secret conferences, they associate 
him with the project of the conversions. But is it likely 
that an archbishop so much cried down, and who was 
deprived by the king of the privilege of having any 
voice in nominations to benefices, could have largely 
shared in that enterprise ? Mme. de Maintenon, often 
as she recurs to the subject in her letters, never men- 
tions him as connected with it, but he was an indispen- 
sable confident in the affairs of the marriage, and that 
was the real mystery. The conversions served as a veil 
to it; the mistake was general; and it is not to be 
doubted, that it greatly promoted zeal for the conver- 
sion cause among the courtiers and ministers. But 
w r hat is bevond all doubt, is, that three months after the 
queen's decease, while the king's devotion was at its 
height, and w T hen Colbert died, Father la Chaise inspired 
the king with the design and the hope • of soon seeing 
all his subjects serving God in spirit and in truth. ■ 
These are the very expressions we read. 



CHAPTER XII. 

War with Spain and Austria. — Continued persecution of 
the Reformed by the provincial authorities unchecked by 
the court. — Great meeting of the Reformed at Toulouse, 
and its consequences. — Both parties arm. — D' Agues- 
seau*s conduct explained and justified. — He is thwarted 
by Louvois, who issues an amnesty on the severest terms, 
and sends orders to treat the Reformed with the utmost 
rigour. 

This grand design was interrupted by the breaking out 
of a short war with Spain and Austria, but an event 
took place in the interval, which was attended with 
most important results. 

The court having, in some sort, committed the reins 
of government to all who had any authority to exercise, 
these gave themselves up to the indulgence of their 
religious animosities, without restraint, and throughout 
all the provinces. They endeavoured to detect the 
Protestants in acts of contravention to the new laws 
which were appearing almost daily; and the pretext 
afforded by the slightest infraction sufficed, not only for 
the interdiction of the pastor who might be accused, 
but, also, for the closing of the place of worship in 
which the offence was done. They went so far at last 
as to prohibit all public exercise of worship, wherever 
the Protestant churches had been pulled down ; and 
under pretence of bringing people back to God, the 
G 2 



124 WILDERNESS MEETINGS FIRST PLANNED 

most violent measures were taken against the Reformed, 
without being conjoined with any endeavours to con- 
vince their judgments, so that, as might have been ex- 
pected, though deprived of the outward exercises of 
worship, they still preserved their faith. 

' Had Louis XIV and his cabinet rightly understood 
human nature/ says the editor of the Memoirs of 
Xoailles, ' they would have taken other measures ; they 
would have foreseen that when force without persua- 
sion, overturns altars, it only stimulates the zeal of those 
who worship at them.' Those Protestants, who, in vir- 
tue of the public functions they exercised in the pro- 
vinces, were entitled to maintain their interests, after 
employing to no purpose all the means of recusations, 
protests, petitions to intendants, to governors, to the 
king's council, and to the king himself, resolved at 
length secretly to concert measures among themselves, 
Toulouse was chosen as the place of rendezvous, and 
sixteen deputies, representing upper and lower Lan- 
guedoc, the Cevennes, Vivarais and Dauphiny, met 
there. So secret was their coming, so mysterious were 
their conferences, that they eluded the utmost vigilance 
of the government. 

Some authors are of opinion that this was the first 
meeting that arranged the plan of what have since been 
called Wilderness Meetings — assemblies du desert, and 
of that concealed worship which was, in fact, instituted 
under the guidance of some of those deputies, and re- 
ceived from them that precise form, and those rules 
which are retained to this day. Be this as it may. 
they were agreed on employing every means of resist- 
ance not actually amounting to rebellion — to give the 
lie, by persevering in celebrating divine worship, to all 
the false statements with which their enemies endea- 



/ . 



BY THE DEPUTIES MET AT TOULOUSE. 125 

voured to natter the piety of the king, representing to 
him as converts, persons who chose rather to submit 
to martyrdom than abandon their faith. 

It was resolved that on a certain fixed day, the inter- 
dicted churches should be opened ; that during prayers 
and preaching, the doors should remain unclosed, so that 
any one might judge of the purity of their worship ; 
that in the various places in which churches had been 
demolished, the people should meet upon their ruins ; 
that all who had succumbed to violence, and subscribed 
abjurations, should meet in places apart only, so as to 
escape prosecution as relapsed persons ; that these last 
meetings should be held neither with a publicity which 
might induce disorder, nor with such concealment as 
should prevent their being observed, it being part of the 
plan that they should not only be noticed, but even that 
the court should be informed of them. Rules were 
drawn up for churches deprived of their pastors, and it 
was resolved that in the absence of pastors, divine 
worship should be celebrated by private individuals in 
houses, secretly. All the remaining ministers were 
exhorted to meet persecution with firmness, no longer 
to obey decrees of interdiction, no longer to go out of 
the kingdom or particular provinces, without leave from 
their respective presbyteries, or unless placed in circum- 
stances of imminent danger. 

In conclusion, they drew up a requcte to be trans- 
mitted by all the meetings, to the chancellor, and to each 
of the secretaries of state, on the very day of their 
assembling for the first time. It consisted of a defence 
of their doctrines, and most touching protestations of 
affection and respect for the king. They prayed for the 
repeal of so many declaratory laws and decisions, de- 
priving the reformed, not only of all their civil rights, 



126 BOTH PARTIES TAKE ARMS. 

but of almost every means of engaging in religious wor- 
ship. ( What a condition is ours/ thev say, ' if we 
make any shew of resistance, we are accounted rebels ; 
while if we submit, we are alleged to be converts and 
our very submission is taken advantage of to deceive 
the king.' 

Notwithstanding the profound mystery in which the 
deputies contrived to shroud themselves, there were 
certain symptoms which led the government to suspect 
that a plot was in agitation. The parliament of Tou- 
louse, and the provincial intendant there, made vain 
attempts to discover its precise object, when, on the 
appointed day, the reformed churches were thrown 
open, the congregations met, and worship recommenced 
in all those districts of the Cevennes, Vivarais, and 
Dauphiny, where it had previously existed. Alarmed 
at this concert, the Roman Catholics regarded it as an 
insurrection. Fright induced them to take up arms, 
the Reformed armed themselves in their turn, and in the 
midst of mutual distrust, the very precautions used to 
ward off danger, made it only more imminent. 

Here we meet with a seeming contrariety in two 
accounts equally entitled to credit. The biographer of 
the Duke of Xoailles says, that D'Aguesseau was the 
first to send for troops, The Chancellor D'Aguesseau 
relates, that amid this general alarm, his father, the 
intendant, conducted himself with gentleness, shewed no 
symptom of insecurity, went even* where without an 
escort, and far from sending for troops, warned the 
court to beware of doing so. We have been at pains to 
clear up this seeming contrariety, and have found how 
the two accounts may be reconciled. When D'Agues- 
seau saw one declaratory law follow fast on another, 
and edict succeed edict, alarmed at such precipitation, 



DAGUESSEAU VINDICATED. 127 

and at a course of proceedings, better fitted, as he said, 
to flatter the piety of the king than to satisfy it, he made 
no secret to the court of the desolation into which it 
had thrown the province most infected with heresy. 
His wish was to prevent commotion by anticipating it, 
and sometime before, he had asked for troops, but was 
not listened to. The Duke of Noailles, then at court, 
in vain seconded the request transmitted from the in- 
tendant of his province. He writes : ' I am continually 
speaking on the subject, but can get no reply, and find 
people perpetually occupied with greater affairs/ But 
when the commotion did arrive, D'Aguesseau, who had 
been deprived of all means of preventing it, only thought 
of not exasperating the evil, and dreaded the arrival of 
troops as likely to make it past cure. He insisted that 
their march should be suspended, and by moderation, by 
prudence, by obtaining the intervention of the wisest 
among the religionists, he succeeded in tranquillizing 
men's minds, and in inducing them to lay down their 
arms and to cease from public worship in the inter- 
dicted places ; finally, he obtained their subscription to 
an act of absolute submission to the wishes of the king. 
' He flattered himself/ says the chancellor, ' that this 
example would enlighten the court itself as to the course 
it ought to follow. But it was not without reason that 
he dreaded the violent counsels of persons about the 
king, more than the obstinacy of the Calvinists. The 
troops, after being long refused, were now on the march ; 
the amnesty, promised by D'Aguesseau but drawn up 
by Louvois, bespoke the frightful sternness of that min- 
ister. It was the pardon of an enraged master ; all the 
ministers, and fifty of their accomplices were excluded 
from it, and orders were given for the demolition of several 
Protestant churches ; D'Augesseau ventured to publish 



128 LOUVOIS' MERCILESS AMNESTY. 

this merciless amnesty with certain mitigations. Mean- 
while the troops arrived in Dauphiny, and regarding 
themselves as sent against rebels, massacred some hun- 
dreds of peasants on their way to a meeting. Distrust 
again seized the Protestants of the Vivarais ; taking up 
arms anew, they suddenly threw themselves into a 
body. The troops marched thither ; D'Aguesseau kept 
them awhile on the frontier, but they had other orders, 
and entered accordingly. Overtaking a meeting of 
peasants, there ensued, not a battle, but a butchery. 
The question turned no longer on converting people by 
quartering soldiers on them, but on punishing a pro- 
vince represented to be in open revolt. 

This narrative is confirmed by one of Louvois' letters. 
still extant in the war office, and addressed to the Duke 
of Noailles, who had repaired to the province. After 
complaining of D'Aguesseau's wishing to stop the 
troops at the frontier, and of their commander having 
consented to this, he adds, ' I pray you to read this 
letter to both, as it will shew how much they have been 
mistaken, and M. d'Aguesseau, in particular, how opposed 
to his Majesty's intentions, and how likely to produce 
the greatest inconveniences, was the course he exacted 
from M. de St. Ruth, and which the latter reluctantly 
pursued. 

* It is not the king's intention that the amnesty shall 
extend to those districts of the Vivarais, where the 
inhabitants have had the insolence to persist in rebel- 
lion, after being informed of his Majesty's goodness 
towards them, and he desires you to give orders to M, 
de St. Ruth, to quarter troops at all the points you deem 
most proper ; to maintain them at the expense of the 
country ; to apprehend the guilty, and send them for 
trial to M. D'Aguesseau ; to raze to the ground the 



THE PROTESTANTS DISAPPOINTED. 129 

houses of all who have been slain in arms, and of all who 
shall fail to return to their homes, after the publica- 
tion of an ordinance to that effect ; that you give him 
orders to pull down eight or ten of the chief Protestant 
churches of the Vivarais, and, in one word, to cause 
such a desolation to be made in that country, that the 
example may keep other religionists in subordination, 
and shew them how dangerous it is to rise against the 
king/ 

Thus, instead of succeeding as they expected in trans- 
mitting to the king positive, yet withal, humble and 
modest proofs of perseverance in the faith, these unfor- 
tunate beings found themselves pourtrayed to his eyes 
only as rebels who had to be promptly put down ; and 
the prolonged stay of the troops in that province, fur- 
nished Louvois with a pretext for transferring to him- 
self, and continuing thereafter in his own hands, the 
same correspondence with Languedoc, though attached 
to Chateauneuf s department, as that of the war minis- 
ter with the frontier provinces. 



g 3 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Hostilities with the empire cease. — The conversion of the 
entire body of the Reformed becomes for the first time a 
subject of deliberation in the cabinet, — Chateauneuf and 
Louvois contrasted. — Character and merits of Louis 
XIV. — His adoption of intolerant maxims, notwith- 
standing his early moderation and the natural nobleness 
of his disposition, explained and accounted for . 

The war of 1684, between France and the empire, did 
not long withdraw Louis XIV. from the internal affairs 
of his kingdom. Peace was soon re-established, and 
then, for the first time, the conversion of the whole 
body of French Calvinists, became a matter of serious 
deliberation. By a deplorable fatality, the council 
adopted one plan, while the minister who was most in 
credit pursued another. The better to comprehend this 
fatal mystery, let us attend to what is said by Mme. de 
Maintenon : ' His ministers at Ratisbonne/ she writes 
on 13th August, 1684, ' have orders to sign a truce to 
last for twenty years ; and he will preserve all he has 
taken since the peace of Nimeguen . . . He means 
to devote himself to the entire conversion of the here- 
tics ; he has frequent conferences on the subject with 
M. le Tellier and M. de Chateauneuf, at which they 
would have me believe my presence not unacceptable. 
We must convert, not persecute. M. de Louvois would 



THE KING'S RESOLUTION TAKEN. 131 

have gentle methods, employed, which is not what one 
would expect from the natural bent of his disposition, 
and his eagerness to see the affair put an end to. The 
king is ready to do whatever shall be deemed most for 
the advantage of religion. It is an enterprise which 
will cover him with glory in the eyes alike of God and 
of man. Having brought all his subjects into the bosom 
of the church, and put an end to heresy, he will have 
done what all his predecessors found beyond their 
power/ 

Here, then, we have the king deliberating with his 
ministers, and ready to do anything. He was fully re- 
solved on conversion. The choice of means was diffi- 
cult, as the event has too well proved. The question 
lay between a system of declared persecution, and one 
of mitigated rigour. Severity and gentleness were sus- 
pended in the balance ; the king left the choice to his 
ministers, and they had no doubt of success. The 
alleged facility of the first conversions nourished this 
fatal hope : the combination of God's interests and the 
kings will, it was thought, would accomplish all 
miracles. 

In this affair the Marquis of Chateauneuf seems to 
have been cruelly out-witted by Louvois. Looking to 
his conduct, Chateauneuf appears to have been a man 
of sufficient justness of view, but of a feeble character. 
He was at first in favour of moderate measures. 
Noailles, writing to him the 5th of October, 16S3, 
justifies himself in regard to the rigour of his pro- 
ceedings : — 'I assure you I am not actuated by hatred 
towards the Huguenots ; while I petition to have some 
churches pulled down where the people have deserved 
this chastisement, and some seditious ministers punished, 
I represent to you at the same time what the ministers 



132 CHARACTER AND MERITS 

who are faithful to the king, have deserved for their 
good conduct.' It was one of Chateauneuf's maxims 
' not to overload the fire with wood ; ' and we have 
seen him moderate the impetuosity of the prosecutions 
commenced by the parliament of Toulouse. 

Louvois, on the other hand, was the first to com- 
mence persecution in Poitou, in Languedoc, and in 
Dauphiny. But he knew his master too well to speak 
out an opinion, which to him would have been odious. 

Louis XIV. was at once gentle and proud. He loved 
his own glory, his country's honour, and the splendour 
of his reign. His naturally tender soul had become 
softer still from being much in the society of women 
and from his eagerness to please them ; without a very 
large understanding, yet in so far as it went, his mind 
was just and elevated. Though respected for his pro- 
bity, and one of the most honest men in his kingdom, 
obstacles irritated him, and his resentment gathered 
strength with time. His education had been neglected, 
for it was long attempted to remove him from all in- 
struction. All that his mother, the queen, had ever 
been able to implant in him, w T as some seeds of piety. 
What followed— the great qualities which he developed 
as soon as he took the reigns of the government into 
his owm hands ; his love of glory, and still more, his 
love of order ; his constant regard for his own dignity, 
the frequency and regularity of his labours with each of 
his ministers, the regard for discipline which produced 
all the victories of his reign, the eager reception he 
gave to every kind of merit — all this he owed to himself 
alone. It has been said by persons habituated to the 
study of character, that he governed, not according to 
any consistent maxims, but as he received impressions 
from those about him, This, it must be confessed, 



OF LOUIS FOURTEENTH. 133 

was the case, and it is deplorably manifest from all 
that we discover in these historical elucidations. In the 
very conjuncture before us, he evidently yielded to the 
league formed by those immediately around him, a sort 
of triumvirate which connected, for the moment, his 
wife, his prime minister, and his confessor ; and which, 
like all alliances of the kind known in history, ended 
in the mutual hatred of the three associates. But let 
us add that his sentiments were always noble and 
straight- forward ; that the impressions which others 
sought to make upon him required always to be in unison 
with the general tone of a great character. Thus 
Louvois inspired him with a love of conquest ; Colbert 
with an eager regard for the public welfare ; Montespan 
fascinated him with all the charms of intellect, and 
taste, and magnificence, by discrimination in the choice 
of pleasures, by a subtile and sarcastic, and yet just 
and well directed wit, which attacked only what really 
deserved ridicule ; Maintenon fixed his regards by the 
noble and affecting idea of presenting his subjects with 
the example of good morals and the domestic virtues ; 
Villeroi owed his influence to his probity, and his con- 
fessor, la Chaise, diverted him from the indulgence of 
too austere and too minute a piety, to what better 
suited his position as a great sovereign. He could be 
deceived and misled, but no low taste debased his cha- 
racter, and no favourite depraved it ; even his passion 
for the widow Scarron far from degraded him ; and as 
men act well, rather from the influence of their habitual 
sentiments and character than from that of maxims and 
reasonings, Louis XIV. notwithstanding the faults of 
his reign, always governed as a great, and well meaning 
prince, and will ever be accounted great in the eyes of 
posterity. 



134 INTOLERANT SPIRIT OF THE 

Far, indeed, be it from us to shew the slightest de- 
sire to detract from the honours that have been heaped 
on Louis the Great ; we wish on the contrary to pay a 
just tribute to his memory. His character was remote 
from persecution, although the prevailing spirit of the 
age in which he lived would have permitted him to be a 
persecutor. For though at the time when the cabinet 
was employed in deliberating on this important subject, 
the atrocious doctrines of intolerance did not resound 
from the pulpits nor appear in books ; though the 
Roman Catholic clergy might carefully conceal this 
doctrine, it was only because past events still inspired 
some measure of fear. Not only political toleration 
and what may be called philosophical toleration, but 
even Christian toleration was almost universally un- 
known ; * and, some years afterwards, when Louis "en- 
gaged in persecution against his will, and indeed with- 
out his knowledge, and when the Calvinists met it only 
with tears and by flight, a numerous part of the clergy 
raised their voices in justification of the most odious 
constraints, and loudly called for their being continued. 

It must be admitted that Louis XIV, allowed the in- 
troduction into his cabinet of intolerant maxims, and 
persecuting measures ; but it has been remarked that 
the cowardly only are cruel, and ones loves to see how, 
in these deliberations, the true knowledge of Louis' 
great mind overawed those among his ministers who 
knew it best from experience. The severe Louvois 
affects to deserve the credit of moderation, in the cer- 

* This can hardly be alleged with truth. Christian toleration 
should be known wherever the Bible is known and read, and we have 
seen political and philosophical toleration recommended in French 
tracts published in the preceding century and practised by such men 
as VHopital, de Thou, Qc. — Ed. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY. 135 

tain prospect of obtaining credit for success, after 
having secured it by the employment of the most vio- 
lent measures. 

Chateauneuf, on the contrary, who had beheld se- 
verity augmenting year after year, who now beheld 
persecution commence, who could not dissemble the 
fact that, step by step, they had been led on to it, 
expressed himself in favour of severe measures, made 
himself unpopular with the king on that account, 
honestly returned to the opinions held by the council, 
and entered into the system of measures which then 
appeared gentle and moderate. 

Such is the true solution of all those enigmas which 
this period seems to present. Such were the true 
causes of the issuing in such quick succession of so 
many edicts, which appeared to form part of a plan 
for deferring to a great distance of time the revocation 
of that of Nantes, of the rapid subversion of that 
plan, and the consequent carrying out of oppression to 
its utmost extent. 

* May it not fairly be presumed, that the death of Charles II. of 
England, and the accession of James II. in 1685, by raising the 
hopes of the papacy, materially contributed in producing this sudden 
alteration of its policy in France. — Ed. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Chateauneuf and Seignelai pursue for a time a course of 
rigorous severity. — Destruction of Churches, suppres- 
sion of Schools, fyc. — The Chancellor, LeTellier, endea- 
vours to moderate the violence of the Provincial Magis- 
tracy.— Notices of laws respecting the Reformed Minis- 
ters and consistories, exhibiting traces of a system of 
extremely limited toleration, — This hardly commenced, 
when it is subverted by the unexpected Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes. — Increased influence of the Roman 
Catholic clergy, who nevertheless fail in obtaining all 
their demands. — Importance to the Reformed in the reign 
of Louis XVI. of the Arret of 15th September, 1685, 

Attaching themselves to the resolution adopted by the 
council, Chateauneuf and the son of Colbert followed, 
for fourteen months, a course which, though rigorous 
to be sure, still retained some regard for toleration, — a 
course which might have secured, though by a process 
somewhat slow, the conversion of the whole kingdom, 
and satisfied the piety of Louis XIV. — not yet too old 
to admit of his waiting for such a result. Other cir- 
cumstances, such as the meeting of the clergy, and the 
urgent endeavours of that body to obtain still greater 
severities from the king, so far quickened their motions, 
but without in the least altering their course. For 
fourteen months, then, a multitude of declarations were 



RAPID PROGRESS OF PERSECUTION. 137 

beheld following each other, perhaps too rapidly, and all 
bearing on the one point of restricting the still remain- 
ing privileges of the Protestants. Many of their tem- 
ples were destroyed, the greater number of their schools 
were suppressed, and their celebrated college at Sedan * 
was handed over to the Jesuits; all judicial and civil 
offices were shut against them ; they dared no longer 
practise as advocates, procurators or physicians ; they 
were prohibited from practising as surgeons, and were 
excluded from all places in the royal household, as well 
as in those of the princes of the blood. Protestant officers 
lost their pensions, synods were debarred from discus- 
sing public questions, from receiving bequests, and 
accepting donations. No minister was allowed to utter 
a word to the prejudice of the Roman Catholic religion, 
or even allowed to teach Greek, Hebrew, Philosophy or 
Theology. A few steps more, and the point was attained 
beyond which it seemed to be thought that nothing 
more should be attempted. The Protestants were at 
the point of being reduced to the merest toleration ; to 
simple liberty of conscience ; to employments which 
they could not be debarred from exercising, without 
inflicting an insufferable injury on the kingdom, such as 
commerce, the arts, agriculture, and the military profes- 
sion ; to rights of which no citizen could be deprived* 
without inflicting an outrage on human nature, such as 
permission to contract marriage, to bury their dead, and 
to educate their children. 

We have, also, to remark, that as each of the provin- 



* This was an act of scandalous perfidy : the king having solemnly 
pledged himself, on the city submitting to his government, that this 
college should be secured to the Protestants. The pretext was, that 
foreigners were admitted as students, although that was the common 
practice of all colleges.— Ed. 



138 ELUCIDATION OF THE POLICY 

cial intend ants continued to call for such a declaration 
as best suited his position, and as the laws thus obtained 
were forthwith made to apply to the kingdom at large, 
the court in some instances refused to comply with 
demands manifestly unjust, and calculated to injure the 
national jurisprudence. Thus, when it was proposed 
that the reformed should lose the power of bequeathing 
their property, the Chancellor, le Tellier, rejected the 
proposition. With what indignation, then, would he 
have refused to reduce them to such an absolute depri- 
vation of all the prerogatives of citizens as an accidental 
concurrence of circumstances reduced them to in the 
eighteenth century ? There is still extant in the royal 
library, a collection of letters addressed by the old chan- 
cellor to all the parliaments, on various points of juris- 
prudence ; in these he endeavours to calm their impe- 
tuosity, and acts the part of a wise moderator and 
worthy chief in the department of justice, anxious that 
the Protestants should preserve all their remaining 
rights. It is only at the commencement of this new 
period, that we find him restraining with a feebler hand 
that ever-augmenting impetuosity, and tolerating a more 
rigorous administration of the laws. 

What was, above all things, sought for, was that the 
reformed pastors might, from that time forward, have 
nothing to do with any act not purely religious, and 
indispensable to persons of their creed ; and, accordingly, 
whatever tended to give them consideration as the chiefs 
of a sect, was taken from them. Thus the registration 
of baptisms, marriages and burials, a matter so far 
purely secular, was taken from them and transferred to 
the magistrates. Means were even found for preventing 
them from acquiring an excessive influence over their 
devotees, and for confining them to such privileges of 



WHICH PRECEDED THE REVOCATION. 139 

station as they might owe, in the different provinces, to 
the prudence of their behaviour and the good will of 
the government officers, not to a treaty concluded 
between them and their prince. This course involved, 
it will be observed, restraint, not violation, of freedom 
of conscience, and notwithstanding its severe use of 
the sovereign authority, manifested some respect for 
natural rights. Had it been perseveringly followed, it 
seems evident that the conversion of almost every Pro- 
testant family would have been ultimately effected. A 
Frenchman naturally yields to ambition rather than to 
fear, and open persecution only made people regard 
conversions as acts of cowardice. 

When we compare the different laws passed at this 
period, we cannot fail to perceive what was the plan 
which the cabinet had adopted, and its being soon for- 
gotten so completely as to be actually unknown in our 
day, must be attributed to its having been subverted, 
almost from its origin, by the unforeseen and precipitate 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and by the sudden 
banishment of all the ministers. Its foundations, never- 
theless, were laid with great ability ; we can trace them 
out to this day under the rubbish that covers them ; 
under a mass, so to speak, of abandoned materials. It 
is of the utmost importance that we demonstrate that 
this plan really existed, for all the proofs we can accu- 
mulate to this effect, unite in shewing that the Revoca- 
tion of the Edict of Nantes was contrary to all that was 
now projected. On the 21st of August, 1684, only 
eight days after the council had adopted its secret reso- 
lutions, a commencement was made in the execution of 
this plan, and in order to deprive pastors of the influ- 
ence naturally resulting from long habits of deference, 
they were forbidden to exercise their ministry for more 



140 THE INTENDANTS AUTHORIZED 

than three successive years in one place ; so far was 
there any foresight or premeditation of their approach- 
ing banishment from the kingdom. 

Other declarations subjected their consistories to the 
inspection of a royal judge; the hospitals they had for 
their sick and poor were confounded with those for sick 
and poor Roman Catholics, without its being necessary 
to change their religion on being admitted ; in all parts 
of the kingdom restraints were laid on what was called 
the personal exercise, being the privilege enjoyed by the 
feudal lords of admitting their vassals into their castles 
to attend divine worship there. But although the feu- 
dal castles were shut on the Calvinist population, al- 
though chapels were pulled down and ministers com- 
pelled to remove to a distance from all interdicted 
places, the intendants were authorised to recal as they 
chose whatever number of interdicted ministers they 
might consider necessary, and to establish them in such 
places as they might think most suitable. The condi- 
tion which was thus assigned to them was precisely what 
the clergy-, previous to the publication of the edict of 
Nantes, had petitioned might be left to them. 

It was at Montauban, and immediately after the 
demolition of the Protestant church of that city, at the 
close of the year 1683, that the king sanctioned the 
first instance of that recal of such ministers as the in- 
tendants might select. His first object was to secure 
the administration of baptisms. The year following, 
M. D'Aguesseau requested authority to the same effect 
for Vivarais and the Cevennes, where the severity of 
Louvois had dispersed nearly all the pastors. The same 
was done soon after in Dauphiny, and thereafter in 
several places successively of Guyenne and Normandy, 
Each intendant had the requisite authority conveyed to 



TO RECALL CERTAIN PASTORS. 141 

him in the first instance by an arret, which was neither 
published nor printed. All these arrets we have found 
in the public records. And when, at last, the public 
exercise of Calvinism had ceased throughout a large 
proportion of the kingdom, about the beginning of 
May 1685, Chateauneuf proposed to follow these up by 
a general public order ; but the old Chancellor, le Tel- 
lier, thought it better that the intendants should con- 
tinue to issue particular ordinances on the subject, the 
rather, to use his expression in writing to Chateauneuf, 
that ' that course would have a more provisional char- 
acter than the arrets, and would ultimately serve less to 
furnish legal titles to the religionists/ There is room 
to suspect, however, that such was not the real motive 
for maintaining this reserve, for it soon after disap- 
peared. It would seem that the old chancellor was 
already aware that the clergy, then about to meet, 
would be sure to complain of this new establishment of 
the pastors, and judged it adviseable to wait until the 
assembly separated before venturing, as he did, to make 
the above order public and general. 

The clergy, in fact, having now attained immense in- 
fluence, owing partly to the devotional turn the king 
had taken, partly to the flattering compliments they 
introduced into their addresses to the crown, partly to 
the general pietism, did complain of this recal of the 
reformed pastors, but were not listened to. They got all 
else they sought to have, but could effect no alteration 
in the plan that had been adopted. In vain did they 
propose to have the infants of the reformed, baptised by 
the parish priests in the districts where the exercise had 
been interdicted ; in vain did they produce the decisions 
of several synods in favour of the efficacy of baptism, 
though administered by a Roman Catholic priest ; in 



142 THE ROMANIST CLERGY 

vain did they add the following note to the memorial 
they laid before the king's minister : — ' Those of the 
religion would consent more readily to this article, if, 
instead of their being obliged to take their children to 
church, the parish priests were to go and baptise them 
in their own houses without asking for fees, and were 
they assured that the baptism of their children by Ro- 
man Catholic ecclesiastics, was not to involve, as a con- 
sequence, their children being reputed Roman Catholics, 
at least, unless they themselves should make a new de- 
claration to that effect on arriving at the age of seven/ 
Not only were the clergy refused this request, but 
during the very time of their being in session, and un- 
der their very eyes, as it were, the plan of establishing 
this new kind of pastors to be chosen by the intendants, 
was carried into full effect throughout the kingdom. 
On the 16th of June, 1685, orders, which were all to 
the same effect, were expedited, giving the same powers 
in this matter, to the intendants of Languedoc, Poitou, 
Beam, Soissonnois, in a word, of every province in which 
the religionists were known to be in any number. 

Nay, it was to another request of the clergy that 
this plan owed its consummation. They complained 
that the Protestants ever since the interdiction of so 
many of their churches, flocked in crowds to those where 
public worship was still tolerated, coming so far some- 
times as thirty leagues to take part in the ordinary ser- 
vice, to attend the communion, to be married, and so 
forth ; that while on the way they chaunted psalms, and 
that such numerous assemblages of heretics presented a 
sad spectacle to men of the true faith. They therefore 
craved that the reformed might be prohibited from at- 
tending divine worship in churches beyond the bailie- 
wicks in which they had their homes. This prohibition 



IN SOME MEASURE THWARTED. 143 

straightway appeared as a law, and from the discussion 
which it occasioned, and the minutes of which, though 
too long to introduce here, were submitted to the king 
and inserted in the public records, it is evident that 
this state of things was expected to be of long con- 
tinuance. 

Now no sooner was this prohibition issued, than mea- 
sures had to be adopted with respect to the marriage 
benediction of the reformed, and hardly had the clergy 
separated, when a general public order appeared on that 
subject. This arret ordains that in each of the inter- 
dicted districts, ' one of the pastors previously estab- 
lished by the intendants, shall give the nuptial benedic- 
tion, without adding anything like preaching, exhorta- 
tion, or exercise of the pretended reformed worship, 
beyond what is comprised in their books of discipline, 
and no religionists shall be present at the ceremony, 
except the nearest relations of the persons to be mar- 
ried, and being within the fourth degree of relationship, 
and the banns shall be published by the judge of the 
district in open court, and the marriage registers kept 
at the record office of court.' 

This arret, signed on the 15th Sept. 1685, only a 
month before the Revocation, was passed at the king's 
council, not at that of parties, where the chancellor used 
to preside, and where the king is never present, but at 
the council of dispatches, his Majesty being there. Thus 
it issued from the king, and was deliberated upon in his 
presence by all his ministers, by Louvois, Seignelai, 
Chateauneuf, and the old Chancellor, le Tellier, who 
signed it. That chief of the magistracy, then, consented 
to the Protestants having it in their power to plead this 
arret, (s* en f aire un titrej these are his very words, and 
it is this very arret which they can plead at the present 



144 de rulheire's remarks. 

day,* or at least which they shall be entitled to plead, 
as soon as they are recognised as Protestants. 

Such are the laws, which amid the desolation pro- 
duced by the Revocation Gf the Edict of Nantes, were 
intended to preserve to the reformed their civil state and 
legal toleration. If, in fact, these laws had been made ap- 
plicable, as was evidently intended, to the kingdom at 
large, the Edict at Nantes would have been found 
annulled before long, without any positive revocation ; 
it would have fallen of itself within a space of time 
which we cannot easily calculate. The Protestants 
were already reduced to a point at which the slightest 
regard for their own interests compelled them to em- 
brace another religious system, and lower than which 
they could not be brought without outraging humanity 
and justice. One step more, and the king found him- 
self engaged in a persecution, repugnant at once to his 
natural good sense and to his whole character. 

* That is. in 1788, 



CHAPTER XV. 

Important events in the provinces. — Ambition of Louvois. 
— The King yields to his suggestions. — D'Aguesseaus 
opinion of the impolicy of compulsory conversions, and 
disgust at the violences committed in Languedoc, — Lou- 
vois meditates a return to the dragonades. — The march 
of an army into Beam, for the purpose of overawing 
Spain, leads to a commencement of those severities in 
that province. — The army returns upon the centre of 
France, passing from province to province, and every 
where converting the inhabitants in the mass, by the 
most frightful atrocities . — Louvois applauds himself on 
his illusory success. — His correspondence with the M. de 
Boufflers and with the D. of Noailles. — The king not 
wholly deceived. — Secret doctrine in favour of extorted 
conversions, gains ground and is adopted by the king. — 
The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes hurried on, amid 
contradictory opinions. — Le Tellier signs the Edict of 
Revocation on his death-bed. — Call for missionaries to 
instruct the new converts. — Same policy pursued. 

While the privy council pursued these principles, the 
provinces became the theatre of events which nearly 
changed the face of things. The most trustworthy 
memorials we possess of those times, quite agree on this 
point, and as the accounts left us by the reformed, are 
those of sufferers who may be suspected of exaggerating 

H 



L4C RESULTS or louv::s' JEALOUSY. 

their griefs, we shall select cur authorities from other 

:es. 

The following', to login, are the expressions of Mme. 
:;.s, 

' The project was grand, beautiful, and even politi- 
cally wise, if viewed mart from the means eraplzyed 
its execution." She proceeds to compress in a few sen- 
tences, what had occurred during a period :: several 
-~rs, contenting hersen with what surhced to give :ue 

just idea :f the main facts, and then adds. — ' On 
seeing the war concluded, M. de Louvois reared he 
might leave the ether ministers with too much advan- 
tage over him. and wished, at any cost, t: have the mikh 

v department mixed up with an enterprise which 

:f dragoons through the towns of the Huguenots, a.ssu- 
rmg him that the mere sight of his troops., without their 
doing m:re than showing themselves, would make them 
resolve to listen with more willingness to the rasters 
via: might be sent among them. •' The hinrd accor- 
ding t: a passage quoted before, ( consented to this. 
contrary to his own judgment and natural melmatiem 
which ever inclined to gentle measures. Accordingly 
royal orders were issued, and cruelties wore com- 
mitted in the king's name without his kuiwledre. and 
which he would have punished, had he known them, for 
M. ae Liuvois merely told him from dav to-dav : — •' as 
I t:ld pour Majesty, so many persons are c inverted 
at the mere sight of your troops." 

D'Aguesseau, wh: lived t: he chancellor of France. 

; ■ then a youth :f seventeen., and witnessed the scenes 
:hat now took place in Languedoe. He thus expresses 
himself in the life of his father, a work not vet mil- 



EFFECTS OF TERROR IX BEARX. 147 

lished : — ■ I will not here name,' says he, ' the intend- 
ant, who by a distinction that did him little honour, was 
charged with the execution of this first attempt at a new 
method for converting heretics. He was one of the 
friends of my father, and other relations ; a man of 
mild enough disposition ; amiable in society ; well in- 
formed on a variety of subjects; having a liking for 
literature and for literary men : yet whether from a de- 
votion, too common among the intendants, to the orders 
of the court, or because he thought, with many others, 
that nothing more remained among the Protestants than 
a kind of obstinacy which it was necessaiy that the 
government should overcome, or rather crush, by sheer 
weight, he had the misfortune to present an example to 
the rest of the kingdom, which was but too faithfully 
followed, and whose first successes even exceeded the 
hopes of its authors. He needed only to exhibit the 
troops, and to announce that the king did not want to 
tolerate more than one religion in his states, and heresy 
seemed to fall prostrate at his feet. Abjurations were 
no longer made one by one ; whole corporations and 
communities deliberately became converts, bv formal 
resolutions, adopted at meetings of their members. Such 
was the influence of terror. over men's minds, or rather, 
as the event shewed, so little did they count on keeping 
promises made so readily.' 

Here may I venture to interrupt the chancellor 
d'Aguesseau, and ask so enlightened and grave a judge, 
why he reproaches the reformed with this readiness ? 
If on the side of the oppressors, casuists were to be 
found who maintained that people ought to be satisfied 
with extorted abjurations, and hypocritical conversions, 
among the Protestants, likewise, there were casuists to 
be met with, who considered abjurations thus extorted 
h 2 



148 d'aguessau's affecting testimony 

manifestly null ; — that they were acts purely indifferent 
and allowable as means of escape from persecution. 
Thus, on both sides, the whole affair resolved itself at 
last into a most scandalous farce. 

f It was/ says the Chancellor, ■ in a province ad- 
jacent to Languedoc, that so extraordinary a result took 
place. My father, with a full presentiment of its conse- 
quences, was alarmed no less on the score of his 
opinions as a politician, than of his feelings as a re- 
ligious man. From that moment he foresaw what the 
court was resolved not to believe, that no sooner would 
the religionists find their case desperate than many 
would take to flight.' ... He then eloquently 
deplores the disasters of that emigration, and relates 
that his father forthwith applied for leave to resign, but 
that an involuntary delay made him a spectator, in spite 
of himself, of calamities which he would much rather 
not have witnessed ; that, thanks to the dragoons who 
filled the city of Montpellier, the priests were not nu- 
merous enough to receive the crowd of Calvinists who 
hastened to give in their abjurations. * The manner in 
which this miracle was wrought/ says he, ' was but 
too well known.; the subject of my work does not call 
on me to explain it ; and would to God I could as easily 
efface the remembrance of it from the minds of men as 
I can omit detailing it. The extraordinary facts com- 
municated to us from day to day would have pierced a 
heart less sensitive, and less religious, than was that of 
my father.' 

What, meanwhile, were the statements laid before 
the king ? We have found in the archives of the 
Louvre, the original copy of the report on the conver- 
sions effected in Beam, the province alluded to by M. 
d'Aguesseau, when he speaks of one adjacent to Lan- 



TO THE HORRORS OF THE DRAGONADES. 149 

guedoc, as that in which the first experiment of so 
strange a mission was tried. 

In order, however, fully to elucidate this, we must go 
back a little farther. Although the first dragonades, 
of which Marillac set the example, had been suspended, 
there had been no repeal of the fatal ordinance which 
authorised them — the two-year s exemption from giving 
quarters to the military, granted in favour of new converts. 
We know that in that reign, concessions were some- 
times made by royal authority, retractations never ; and 
if we are to interpret the conduct of Louvois by his 
character, his ambition, his conduct both before and 
after, we should say that while too sagacious not to 
have opposed the devotional tendencies of the king at 
first, that minister was too ambitious also, not to covet 
in the sequel, engrossing the conversion of the kingdom 
to himself, and that expecting a return of the same 
circumstances, he reserved to himself the power of 
having recourse to the same expedients. In fact, a 
return to the dragonades engaged his consideration 
from the month of March, 1685. Letters of his, still 
preserved in the war department, shew that he was 
secretly arranging a renewal in Poitou and the Pays 
d'Aunix, of the experiment of arbitrarily billetting 
soldiers on the Huguenots as a means of converting 
them, when all his measures were precipitated by the 
unexpected march of an army into Beam for the pur- 
pose of breaking into Spain. Motives totally uncon- 
nected with the conversions, led to the march of this 
force, and these we proceed to relate, as they throw 
light on the origin of events which long after threatened 
the general peace of Europe. 

To the rivals of France the king had just dictated 
the conditions of a long peace. Almost all Europe had 



150 UNLOOKED-FOR PRECIPITATION 

acquiesced in laws which he had imposed, when certain, 
though secret, intelligence reached him, that projects, 
little comporting with his interests, were in progress 
at Vienna and Madrid. Charles II. of Spain who had 
been married for six years to a French princess, was child- 
less, and his extreme weakness already gave rise to the 
conception of great designs on the eventual succession to 
the various states composing the Spanish monarchy. 

To the elector of Bavaria, the destined husband of 
an Austrian arch- duchess, it was proposed to the King 
of Spain that he slu uld transfer the future government 
of the Low countries ; and as one of the results of the 
arrangement which was to secure the Spanish monarchy 
to the two spouses, the Bavarian states were to be re- 
united to those of the house of Austria in Germany. 

This information reached Louis XIV. about the end 
of March, when he instantly ordered the advance of 
an army to the Spanish frontier. And here let us be 
just in admitting the extraordinary talents of the very 
minister who, at the same time, was so dangerous a 
person as respected the kingdom's internal welfare, 
In a single fortnight, a numerous army, furnished with 
all the supplies required for the commencement of a 
campaign, was concentrated in Beam, so as to be 
ready at once to pass the Spanish frontier. As an am- 
bassador from France was slowly travelling to Madrid, 
his progress was quickened by his receiving an order 
to notify to the king of Spain that * the king was 
about to use all the means which God has placed in his 
power, to prevent the accomplishment of the designs 
then projected, and that if he did not receive a prompt 
and decisive answer, the army then assembled in Beam 
would carry war into those parts of the Spanish monar- 
chy where it would be most keenly felt/ 



OF LOUVOIS' SWEEPING SEVERITIES. 151 

Such, at that time, were the power and the pride of 
France, and thus closed one of the most glorious periods 
that the annals of any empire ever presented. It com- 
menced with the establishment of domestic tranquillity 
by Henry IV., and the revocation of the edict of 
Nantes marks its termination. By what fatality did 
France proceed to drain for long the true source of her 
prosperity ; to make a present to her enemies of her 
choicest seamen, the best of her brave officers, and a 
numerous body of soldiers, inured to war by sharing 
in her victories ; to transfer to her rivals the very arts 
which had enriched her, and to inflict a wound on 
herself, which after more than a century, is not yet 
closed ? 

Now, it was while the above events had led to the 
formation of an army in Beam, that the intendant of 
that province, in a fit of apostolic zeal, declared that 
the king desired to have but one religion in his domi- 
nions. This intendant's name was Foucault, and being 
grandson to the engineer who planned and superin- 
tended the execution of the dyke which led to the fall 
of Rochelle,* it seemed as if he had caught from the 
very glory of his family, an hereditary zeal for the 
absolute extinction of the sect which his grandfather 
had done so much to weaken. In other respects he 
fully deserved all that the chancellor d'Aguesseau has 
said in his praise. He had recommended himself in 
his different intendencies by the interest he took in the 
embellishment of their towns ; he was a man of vast 
erudition, and to him, by a singular contradiction, we owe 
the discovery and publication of a celebrated work of 
antiquity, On the death of Persecutors. 

* It fell in 1628, after the loss of 12,000 men,— Ed. 



152 MOCK CONVERSIONS IN BEARN. 

The utmost imaginable military license was now ex- 
ercised in Beam at the expense of the Calvinists, and 
the intendant is said to have carried more than one 
kind of torture to perfection. The memoirs of that 
time inform us that it was made a study to discover tor- 
tures inflicting pain, without causing death, and carrying 
human suffering to its utmost extremity, without short- 
ening the existence of their wretched victims. Yet the 
statement laid before the king, says not a word of the 
dragonades or of violence ! From anything it con- 
tains, no one would suppose that there was a single 
soldier in Bearn. The general conversion of which it 
spoke is represented as the work of divine grace. The 
king's wishes had only to be announced, and instruc- 
tion given to people eagerly thronging to receive it, and 
their submission is made to appear the spontaneous act 
of persons anxious to anticipate the wishes of a prince 
who was favoured in all his enterprises by the blessing 
of heaven. All were said to crowd to the Roman Catholic 
churches to sing the Te Deum as an act of thanksgiving, 
and the joyful re-union was solemnised with discharges 
of musketry, salvos of artillery, and unanimous acclama- 
tions of ' God save the King/ 

This mock success, and the praises and honours lav- 
ished on the intendant, immediately called forth the 
utmost emulation in many of his colleagues. Those of 
the adjoining generalities eagerly petitioned to be 
allowed to employ the same troops which remained, 
however, encamped on the Spanish frontier, for although 
the court of Madrid could not delay for a moment the 
answer required by such a threat, the presence of such 
a force was found useful in hastening the removal of 
other difficulties which had arisen in giving effect to the 
last preceding treaties. 



BAIT HELD OUT TO THE SPANIARDS. 153 

But when August arrived, this army retired from the 
frontier, and the cause of this return into the interior is 
not less memorable than their unhappy destination as 
they withdrew. Louis XIV. informed his ambassador 
of the projects of the Austrian council and the partisans 
of the court of Vienna in Spain, to induce the king of 
that country to leave his territories to the Arch- duke or 
Arch- duchess, or to some other prince capable of oppo- 
sing the pretensions of the King of France. He in- 
structed him to watch the intrigues that were on foot, 
and to endeavour to allay the ancient antipathies of the 
Spaniards towards France ; in order to w T hich he says, 
■ you will inform them that the aim of all my designs, is 
the establishment of peace throughout Europe, and to 
avail myself of so favourable a conjuncture for the pur- 
pose of crowning the felicity of my subjects, with the 
thorough and complete return of all of them to the fold 
of the church, and to contribute as much as possible to 
the augmentation of our religion throughout all the 
other states in which its revival has commenced.' 

Immediately upon this, Louvois issued the first order 
for the grand Dragonades to the Marquis of Bouffiers, 
then commanding the army assembled in Beam. The 
letter enclosing that order, and extracts from others 
that followed it, will now be laid before the reader. 
The first is dated 31st July, 1685. 

' You will perceive from my preceding letters, that 
there is no probability of your receiving the king's 
orders to make any irruption into Spain this year, and 
I have now only to confirm that impression,, as the 
court of Madrid, in compliance with the king's urgent 
representations, consents to all his Majesty's wishes ; a 
result which has suggested to him the idea of advan- 
tage being taken of the troops now under your orders, 
h 5 



154 ORDERS FROM THE COURT 

during what remains of the year, for diminishing to 
the utmost, the great number of religionists inhabiting 
the generalities of Bordeaux and Montauban, and to 
try to effect, if possible, as many conversions there as 
in Beam. 

' In order to this, his Majesty desires you to confer 
with Messrs. de Ris and de la Berchere, the intendants 
of these two generalities, and to learn from them what 
particular places most abound with religionists, and 
that in execution of his Majesty's orders, of which I 
send you a great many with blanks to be filled up to 
that effect, you march into each district whatever 
number of cavalry, infantry, or dragoons, you may 
agree upon with them ; that you quarter these on the 
religionists only, and remove them from one individual 
to another as conversions take place ; that you with- 
draw the troops from a community altogether on all 
its inhabitants becoming converts, to another, or even 
when a majority shall have adopted the good cause, 
delaying to a future opportunity the conversion of the 
remainder, as will be afterwards explained to you. 

6 That while the troops are quartered with the said 
religionists, you do not allow them to commit any far- 
ther disorders beyond exacting 20 sols per place, for 
each cavalry-man or dragoon, in name of forage and 
utensils, and 10 sols, for each foot soldier for utensils. 

f That you see to the severest punishments being 
inflicted on officers and privates in the cavalry, foot, 
or dragoons, who may exceed your regulations. 

e That should the execution of these orders among 
the religionists lead any of them to vent themselves in 
seditious language, you cause such to be arrested forth- 
with and committed to the safe keeping of the provin- 
cial parliament, and at its bar they shall be prosecuted, 



ON THE CONVERSIONS BY QUARTERING. 155 

'That if recourse be had to arms, or meetings of 
the religionists be held, in any district, his Majesty 
commands you to send word of it by an immediate 
express ; meanwhile, and without waiting for farther 
orders, you will collect troops and march upon the mal- 
contents in sufficient force to disperse them, and by the 
severe examples you make on the spot, of all who are 
taken with arms in their hands, deter others from fol- 
lowing so bad an example. 

' His Majesty has seen by the letters of M. de Ris 
that the department under his jurisdiction, contains 
150,000 religionists ; he has not yet learned how many 
there are in the generality of Montauban, but his 
Majesty doubts not that they are to be found there in 
very great numbers. 

' You will concur with them in investigating, how 
many, according to the nearest estimate, are comprised 
in each electorship, and in what cities or large towns 
they exist in the greatest numbers; and with these, 
that is with the cities, towns and villages containing 
the largest proportions of them, you will commence 
the execution of his Majesty's orders, taking care that 
endeavours be made to diminish the number of reli- 
gionists resident in each locality, in such wise that 
each district shall come to have twice or thrice as many 
Roman Catholics as religionists, so that when his 
Majesty comes at last to suppress the public exercise of 
that religion in his kingdom, there may be no ground 
to be alarmed lest the remaining religionists should 
attempt anything. 

' With this view, whenever enough of conversions 
shall have been made to constitute a decided excess on 
the side of the Roman Catholics, in any city or neigh- 
bourhood, his Majesty approves of your withdrawing 



156 the king's policy described. 

the troops, and sending them somewhere else, and 
that you so continue to employ them until the said re- 
ligionists shall sink into a decided minority, in all the 
districts comprehended within the said two generalities/ 

Thus, at the very time when these severe orders 
were given, no accurate census had been made of the 
Huguenot population, yet there can be no question 
that under so vigorous an administration, such a census 
must have preceded the execution of any grand 
measure ; * that is, were it true that any such grand 
measure had been contemplated, instead of the occa- 
sion alone having suggested what was done. 

In subsequent orders, Louvois shews that he did not 
expect that the mere appearance of the army would 
produce such an instantaneous feeling of terror. He 
writes as follows to M. de Boufflers on the 24th of 
August : — ' The king is not of opinion that we ought 
to attempt effecting conversions to the extent of entire 
communities, being convinced that it is much better to 
receive them in detail and to confine ourselves to 
diminishing their numbers, so that they may nowhere 
constitute the majority. His Majesty has always thought 
it of consequence to the progress of conversions that 
the ministers should go into foreign countries ; and 
accordingly, far from balking their hopes in that respect 
as you propose, he recommends your urging them by 
quartering troops in their houses, to leave the province, 
and avail themselves of the facilities the king affords 
them for leaving the kingdom.' 

On August 30th he writes farther * * * ' Bear 
in mind, I beseech you, what has been repeatedly 

* The author seems not to have observed that any such general 
census was likely to be avoided, as calculated to awaken premature 
►suspicions on the part of the Reformed. — Ed. 



NATUfiE OF THE MOCK CONVERSIONS. 157 

pressed on your attention, to do your best to multiply 
conversions without attempting to make them general, 
or to make the richest turn converts, and that it suffice 
for the present that there be a considerable diminution 
in the numbers of the religionists. In this respect you 
must devote yourself to his majesty's interests, without 
minding what may be proposed to you by the clergy, or 
by the intendants, who, to me, seem resolved to effect 
the same results as in Beam, a thing which, without a 
miracle, they never will do.' 

The general orders found in all the letters to the in- 
tendants, commanding the successive advances of the 
troops, always bear that they are to try to procure con- 
versions if they can, but not to attempt converting all, 
and to leave the obstinate in their error. 

Meanwhile the mock conversions proceeded faster and 
more easily than was expected. Some did not consider 
that in submitting to force they really abandoned their 
faith. Others, although tortured by the remonstrances 
of conscience, yielded to present alarm, but secretly re- 
turned to their former modes of worship, and with the 
greater fervour as having to atone for the crime of 
having openly abandoned it. Others sought only by 
a feigned abjuration to gain time for flight. Neverthe- 
less, the minister applauded himself on his illusory 
success. Early in September, we find him sending the 
following tidings to the old chancellor, his father : — 
' Sixty thousand conversions have taken place in the 
generality of Bordeaux, and twenty thousand in that of 
Montauban. With such rapidity is the work advancing 
that by the end of the month, there will not remain 
above two thousand religionists in the whole generality 
of Bordeaux, where there were one hundred and fifty 
thousand on the 15th of last month/ 



158 LOUVOIS' PRECISE INSTRUCTIONS 

On the same day he replies to de Bouffiers, and can- 
not refrain from expressing his astonishment. ' The 
king/ says he, l has learnt with the utmost satisfaction, 
the surprising success of the orders he sent you. . . . 
He has no present intention of employing troops for the 
conversion of the few remaining religionists at Bor- 
deaux, and if the insinuations of M. de Ris do not lead 
them to choose the good part, his majesty will see to 
what must be done with them, after effecting the con- 
version, or a considerable diminution, of the religionists 
in the remaining parts of the province. His majesty 
leaves you to march towards the Saintonge whatever 
force of infantry, cavalry, and dragoons you may deem 
fit. * * * to attempt the same thing there which 
you have accomplished to such good purpose in these 
two generalities. * * * 

1 If the gentils-hommes of the religion continue ob- 
stinate, and refuse to become converts under the influ- 
ence of what yourself, or Messrs. de Ris and de la 
Berchere, have to say to them, his majesty approves of 
your quartering troops in the houses of such as are not 
now serving in the army, or who have not completed a 
service of twenty years in it. 

f You will be careful, also, not to quarter men on per- 
sons of distinguished rank, without, however, explain- 
ing to them that you have the king's orders for ex- 
empting them. On the contrary, you will leave them to 
suppose that they too will have quarters to provide in 
their turn, unless they think of changing a religion 
which his majesty dislikes, instead of obstinately 
attaching themselves to their errors ; that if this be not 
enough, you may make use of the blank Jettres de 
cachet, sent by the kings orders, through M. de Cha- 
teauneuf, to Messrs. de Ris and de la Berchere, com- 



TO THE INTBNDAKTS AND COMMANDANTS. 159 

manding the banishment of such as shew the greatest 
obstinacy, or most eagerness in hindering conversions. 
But this expedient you will use with the utmost discre- 
tion, it being of little consequence to the kingdom's 
welfare that some gent Us -homines, more or fewer, re- 
main in the provinces, provided there be no more peo- 
ple to follow them, should they make any attempt 
against the state. We may even feel assured that the 
greater number will ere long change on finding them- 
selves without any places of worship and surrounded by 
Roman Catholics/ 

As the troops advanced into the provinces, they 
uniformly received the same orders. On the 8th of 
September, Louvois wrote to the intendant of Poitou : 
' I repeat that you must be content with the conversion 
of the greater number of the religionists .... and not 
insist on that of the whole, at one stroke, it being of im- 
portance that powerful families, on whom depends the 
trade of the province, and who are thus a great advan- 
tage to it, shall not be obliged to fly from the country/ 

It is thus demonstrated, that even in the execution of 
these famous dragonades, and amid the surprise and joy 
caused by an apparent success altogether exceeding ex- 
pectation, it was still supposed that during some years 
at least, there would remain a somewhat considerable 
number of the reformed, scattered throughout the king- 
dom ; and it was now that the royal council, in spite of 
the two opposite systems pursued by the ministers, and 
which they continued to pursue for some months longer, 
consented nevertheless to grant the civil toleration of 
which we have developed the plan. It was then that 
the new form* for the baptism and marriage of the 
Calvinists were stipulated, and that pastors were esta- 
blished in the provinces at the choice of the intendants. 



160 THE KING'S FALSE IMPRESSIONS. 

It is equally evident that even during the course of 
these violent measures, they who were opposed to more 
being allowed to remain in this religion, than a small 
number of obstinate persons, had no thought of con- 
signing these to that civil death — that impossibility of 
giving legal proofs of their existence — to which their 
unhappy fortunes have consigned them in our days. 

We shall speedily perceive what it was that pre- 
cipitated men's resolutions, and that would not allow 
this new plan of toleration, transient as it was, to 
establish itself. What we have now to show is, that 
the king was persuaded that there had been no acts of 
extreme violence. His impression was, that people who 
felt no strong tie to their religion, had promptly aban- 
doned it, under the influence of some slight pecuniary 
advantage, or in order to avoid some slight domestic 
inconveniences. He prohibited soldiers being allowed 
to live at discretion in the houses of the religionists. 
His prohibitions, it is true, remained secret ; and suc- 
cess, that is to say, some pretended conversions obtained 
by disobedience to these prohibitions on the part of 
some officers or soldiers, sufficed to secure their im- 
punity. Louvois writes to Boufflers on the 19th of 
September : ( M. de Larrey sends word, that while only 
a single religionist remained in a small town, called 
Montignac, he had quartered eight dragoons there in 
garrison. I have farther received a letter from M. 
Dusaussai, which informs me that he had placed 
dragoons in the houses of the religionists to live at dis- 
cretion. . . . Now both have done contrary to his 
majesty's intentions, as I conveyed these to you, he 
being still of opinion that should any obstinate person 
remain in a place, he ought to be left there ; and that 
the contempt shewn for him, together with the charges 



IMPATIENCE OF LOUVOIS. 161 

which it will be easy for an intendant to lay on him, 
will, in the end, have the desired effect in leading to his 
conversion, without being obliged to have recourse again 
to such violent proceedings as these gentlemen mention. 
It is on this account that I have thought proper to 
write to none but you, in order that without its being 
perceived that the king has disapproved of any thing 
that has passed, you may see that all who are under 
your orders preserve respect for his majesty's command.' 

He writes farther en the 6th of October : ' No one 
could be more displeased than his majesty has been 
with the conduct of the mayor of Xaintes in sending 
troops beyond his own jurisdiction : still more with 
that of the officer who took orders from him without 
leave from you. His majesty has not thought proper 
to make a stronger demonstration against them, be- 
cause what they did has been attended with such 
success, and because he does not think it well that any 
should have to say to the religionists that his majesty 
disapproves any thing whatever which has been done 
with a view to their conversion.' 

May we not repeat here, what we said on the occa- 
sion of the first experiment of the dragonades made in 
Poitou, that it were madness to suppose that M. de 
Louvois could presume so much on respect being paid to 
his authority, on the exact discipline of the troops, and 
the vigilance he enjoined on the commandants, as to 
imagine that in handing over the Calvinists, with their 
property and families, to popular fanaticism and military 
license, he could confine disorders within prescribed 
bounds, and lay an arrest on them at the precise point 
desired ? But a peace of twenty years, which at first 
seemed necessary for completing the general conversion 
of the kingdom, did not suit this minister whose great 



162 FALLACIOUSNESS OF THE ACCOUNTS 

talents had so ably seconded his master's passion for 
war. He was alarmed at his devoting so much as 
twenty years to the conversion scheme ; but being un- 
able to divert him from it, thought only of having it 
accomplished as soon as possible. 

We have now seen what were the orders given in the 
king's name ; let us turn to the reports which were 
submitted to him. We may presume from the unfaith- 
fulness of the statement respecting Beam, what the rest 
were ; but in order to throw still farther light on this 
investigation, we shall here recall some already known 
to the public. The Duke of Noailles, a man generally 
respected for his worth, commanded in Languedcc, a 
province always regarded as the focus of Calvinism. 
Noailles went thither about the middle of September. 
Such an opportunity for showing off his zeal so skilful 
a courtier could not allow to let pass : but he had little 
time to give to these conversions, his assiduity as a 
courtier recalling him to Versailles, where his duties as 
captain of the guards required him to be, on January 1, 
1686. The following is the account he gives of a 
spectacle, the sight of which had obliged the elder 
d'Aguesseau to fly from the scene, and the recollection 
of which, even at the distance of fifty years, filled his 
son, the chancellor d'Aguesseau, with horror. 

The compiler of Xcailles* Memoirs thus expresses 
himself. ( It is not the cruel dragonade, about which 
so much has been said by the Calvinists, but a rapid 
execution, whose apparent success at first dazzled the 
Duke of Noailles, a man faithful, judicious, and passion- 
ately devoted to the public welfare. * * * In com- 
mencing his statement, he announces the conversion of 
the towns of Nimes, Uzes, Alais, Villeneuve, kc. ' The 
most considerable persons in Nimes, 1 he writes to Lou- 



PRESENTED TO THE KING. 163 

vols, ' abjured in the church on the day following my 
arrival. After that there was an abatement, and things 
were again put in their proper train by some quarterings 
of troops, which I made among the most obstinate/ In 
a separate letter which apparently was not designed to 
meet the eyes of the king, we read c that two of these 
quarterings was of a hundred men each.' 

' I am preparing to set off on a tour through the 
Cevennes, and hope that by the end of the month, not 
a single Huguenot will be found remaining. What 
will please you, and is more accordant with the king's 
kind feelings towards his subjects, is, that there has been 
no quartering of troops among the religionists, without 
the daily allowance to the men, (que par V etape) . The 
bad weather, long marches, and the incapacity of the 
consuls in this country, who are not accustomed to 
receive troops, may have occasioned some disorders, but 
these I have done my utmost to repair, causing restitu- 
tion to be made of the smallest article taken.' .... 
Soon after, he pledges his head, that by the 25th 
of November, the province will not contain a single 
Huguenot. 

On the 1 5th of October he writes from Florae, ' that 
already more than one third of the Gevaudan is converted ; 
that he always takes dragoons with him to conduct these 
missions ; that would the king have the goodness to 
grant the converts some relief from the tax called tattle, 
it would have a good effect ; for although great for- 
bearance had been shewn on account of their prompt 
obedience, they could not fail to have suffered.' Still 
we recognize in a confidential letter the secret under- 
standing that existed between Louvois and him, for 
the duke informs him 'that he will not fail to send 
him some intelligent person to give him such details, 



164 EXTRAVAGANT EXPECTATIONS 

and reply to such questions, as cannot be committed to 
writing.' 

At length he writes to Louvois, after receiving from 
him testimonies of Louis XlVth's satisfaction : ' The 
conversions subsequent to the loth of October have 
been so general and so expeditious, that we cannot 
be sufficiently thankful to God, nor think too seriously 
about the means of entirely finishing the work, by giving 
the people such instructions as they need and urgently 
require. The religionists of this province amount to 
about two hundred and forty thousand men, and in ask- 
ing until the 25th of next month for their entire con- 
version, I ask more than enough : believing that the 
end of this month will find all accomplished. 7 

We learn from these same letters that the accounts 
received from that province by the Father la Chaise, 
were more unfaithful still, and that the secret corres- 
pondents of this king's confessor, ' in their eagerness/ 
as Noailles says, ' to procure for themselves an ovation/ 
announced conversions which never took place, and 
exaggerated both their number, and the ease with 
which they were obtained. Now compare the dates, 
and you will find that from the 15th of September, the 
day on which the memorable order in council on the 
marriages was signed, to the ISth of October, when 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes received its sig- 
nature, these statements giving such unfaithful repre- 
sentations of the situation of his people, continued 
to be daily submitted to the king. Day after day this 
deceptive intelligence was conveyed to him. Mine, de 
Maintencm writes from Chambor on the 26th of Septem- 
ber , ' Not a courier arrives but brings him joyful 
tidings, that is, news of people being converted by 
thousands. 5 



ENTERTAINED AT THE COURT. 165 

On the 15th of October, Louvois replies thus to the 
Duke of Noailles : — ' I read to his Majesty your letters 
of the 7th and 8th of the month. From them he learns, 
greatly to his satisfaction, that the conversions continue 
to make progress, and that you assure him that by the end 
of the first fortnight of next month, the pretended Re- 
formed religion will be entirely abolished in Languedoc' 

Thus was it that the revocation which had for some 
years been meditated, but the accomplishment of which 
had. seemed to be still at a considerable distance, was 
precipitated all at once. The king believed his whole 
kingdom to be converted, or nearly about being so. 
In the preamble to the edict of revocation he starts 
from this supposition as an ascertained fact, saying in 
express terms, ' that his anxious endeavours had effected 
all that was proposed, since the better and the larger 
proportion of his subjects of the Pretended Reformed re- 
ligion had embraced the Roman Catholic/ so that the 
very terms of the edict prove the deception that was 
practised upon the king. 

It is true that the king was not wholly deceived ; 
but he thought that the Calvinists, without sincerely 
embracing our faith, had at least entirely abandoned 
their own, without violence, without persecution, merely 
to avoid some slight domestic inconvenience, and some 
embarrassment in their fortune. It was then that he 
was induced to adopt the secret doctrine which we have 
already explained, as we may learn from a letter of 
Mme. de Maintenon, on the subject of the edict, in 
which she says : — * I am well aware that these con- 
versions are not all sincere, but God employs all methods 
for bringing back heretics to himself. Their children, 
at least, will be Roman Catholics, though the fathers 
may be hypocrites. Their outward union brings them 



166 THE MOCK CONVERSIONS SUSPECTED, 

nearer at least to the truth. They have the tokens at 
least of communion with the faithful. Pray to God to 
enlighten all of them. The king has nothing more at 
heart/ 

But what is not less remarkable, is that the sudden 
adoption of this important resolution was greatly owing 
to the very distrust that was entertained with regard to 
such sudden conversions. Such promptness of sub- 
mission was unexpected ; the conversion of whole towns 
at once, and after deliberations taken in common, filled 
people with astonishment, and, at the same time, in- 
spired a sort of alarm. Louvois writes to Baville on 
the 9th of October : — ' It is well that the submission of 
the religionists be general, but we must take care that this 
unanimous submission do not keep up among them a 
kind of cabal which cannot fail to be very prejudicial 
in the sequel.' People thought therefore to secure 
themselves against the dissimulation of the new con- 
verts, by urging the banishment of all their ministers. 

On the loth of October, Louvois wrote from Fon- 
tainebleau, to the chancellor, Le Tellier, who lay at his 
house at Chaville, overwhelmed with old age and cala- 
mities, and expecting death. ' I have read over to the 
king the declaratory law of which you sent me the 
draught, and which his majesty quite approves. You 
will see by the copy which accompanies this, that his 
majesty has caused some clauses to be added, on which 
he would like to have your early opinion. His Majesty 
has given orders that this declaration be expedited 
forthwith, and sent to all quarters, considering that as 
matters now stand, it is well that the ministers be ban- 
ished without delay. 

It was under this aspect, also, that men the 
most considerate, the best acquainted with the most 



AND THE PASTORS BANISHED. 167 

secret designs of the council, those men who at all 
courts, and especially in France, live in the society of 
ministers of state, penetrate their secrets, follow their 
intrigues, and hold themselves at all times in a position 
to become acquainted with events and projects before 
the public at large is aware of them ; it was under this 
aspect, I repeat, that such as these viewed the motives, 
and even heard the first news of this resolution. Mark 
what Courville, one of Louvois confidents, says of it in 
his Memoirs, Mark how he ran to the minister's house 
to see about some alteration to be made in it, and how, 
with his usual penetration, he divined what had been 
proposed by Louvois. 

Thus the revocation was hurried on only in conse- 
quence of the precipitation that preceded it, and the 
ministers were universally banished, because the conver- 
sions were universally suspected. Still there was some 
opposition of sentiment in the council. The Abbe de 
Choisy tells us that opinions were divided, some wishing 
that there should be no alteration in the maxims to be 
followed, and that every thing should be done gently. 
The letter from Mme. de Maintenon, which we have 
just quoted, throws some light on what passed, and 
shews us that the king's magnanimous spirit still re- 
volted at the idea of persecution. ' The king,' says she, 
' is highly pleased at having completed the grand work 
of re-uniting the heretics to the church. Father la 
Chaise promised that it would not cost a drop of blood, 
and M. de Louvois says the same thing.' 

It would not cost a drop of blood ! The event shewed 
what the promise was worth. We shall not here recall 
that disastrous emigration, which during seventy whole 
years never stopped, and which even now is ever ready 
to begin anew. We stop not to inquire how many 



168 DREADFUL SUFFERINGS OF THE REFORMED. 

thousands of men, women, and children perished amid 
the dangers and fatigues to which they were exposed, 
in endeavouring to escape. We shall only sav with 
Boulainviliers, though far from being an exact author, 
that ten thousand men fell victims to fire, the wheel, 
and the gibbet. And to quote more authentic testi- 
mony, we have just seen that Noailles reckoned that 
there were two hundred and forty thousand Calvinists 
in the province of Languedoc alone, while Baville, fifteen 
years after, does not make that unhappy race amount 
to more than 198,000, and yet the troubles of the 
Cevennes had not yet commenced. Begon, an intend- 
ant worthy of credit, states that in 1698, the single 
diocese of Saintes had lost a hundred thousand inhab- 
itants. 

"While the provinces were resounding with groans, 
while all who were in a capacity to fly, were preparing 
for flight, the Roman Catholic pulpits resounded with 
panegyrics ; but what were the real opinions of enlight- 
ened men ? What, for example, were Bossuet's senti- 
ments ? These, it is curious to trace in the very praises 
he lavishes on this pretended victory. We can discover 
them in his panegyric of the chancellor, Le Tellier, 
whose funeral oration, three months after he had signed 
the Edict of Revocation, was pronounced by Bossuet. 
Addressing himself to the bishops, he speaks of the 
additional labours which that event imposed on the 
clergy ; ' Ah/ says he, f if we be not indefatigable in 
instruction, in reproof, in consolation, in administering 
milk to the weak, and bread to the strong ; in fine, in 
cultivating these new plants, and explaining to this new 
people, that sacred word which, alas, has been so much 
employed to seduce them, the strong man armed, after 
being cast out of his house, will return more furious 



THE REVOCATION NECESSITATES SUDDEN CHANGES. 169 

than ever, with seven spirits worse than him, and our 
last estate will become worse than the first. Let us not 
cease to proclaim this miracle of our days/ — and he then 
gives himself up, with the full force of his genius, to 
eulogising an action whose dangerous character he had 
just taught us to apprehend by such an exordium. 

Flechier, in his funeral oration on the same chan- 
cellor, uses a remarkable expression. ■ I behold,' says 
he, ' the right hand of the Most High, if not change, at 
least strike men's hearts.' The celebrated Baville, the 
terror of the Huguenots, who was considered by the 
gravest men of that age, as one of the wisest persons 
and strongest heads in the kingdom, and who, in the 
memoirs of that time, was called the King of Languedoe, 
in a letter addressed to his brother, dated 1 7th April, 
1 708, and of which the original is still extant, expresses 
himself thus • ' I never was of opinion that the Edict of 
Xantes should be revoked ; ' and without saying it in 
express terms, he plainly enough intimates as much, in 
a very eloquent memorial which he addressed to the 
kins' thirteen years after, and in which, after expressing 
the astonishment he felt, he maintains that it had 
become necessary promptly and instantlv to finish, 
what had been imprudently commenced, 

All invincibly demonstrates that it was an unforeseen 
and precipitate act. It necessitated the sudden change 
of the measures previously commenced, and the effect 
given to which was still recent- Only two months 
before, an act had been passed which vested in the hos- 
pitals, whatever property was, or might be, acquired bv 
the suppressed consistories ; but the sudden suppression 
of all the consistories, and the total ruin of all the Pro- 
testant places of worship, led to an immediate alteration 
of that measure. Part of this property was coveted as 

i 



170 ALL FRANCE TRAVERSED AND OPPRESSED 

a fund, out of which to meet unforeseen expences attend- 
ing the general conversion, the rebuilding of churches, 
and the purchase of books for the new converts. The 
king, accordingly, hastened to write, through Chateau- 
neuf, to all the intendants, desiring them to suspend the 
execution of the preceding law throughout the kingdom. 

The assembly of the clergy, which had separated 
some weeks before, had provided funds for the mainte- 
nance of a number of missionaries in the provinces, yet 
the calls for persons to instruct all that had been de- 
prived of their own religion, made the number insuffi- 
cient. There was an instant necessity for providing 
support for new troops of missionaries, to be sent out 
for the purpose of really converting persons already 
denominated new converts : and the receiver general for 
the clergy was, therefore, authorised to borrow money 
on the- credit of funds to be levied five years after by 
the next assembly. 

At the time of the Edict of Revocation being promul- 
gated, the troops had been for some days under orders 
to march towards the northern provinces, those of the 
south of France only having felt as yet the effects of the 
tempest. No change was made in this new destination, 
and in the six remaining weeks they completed the cir- 
cuit of the kingdom. Thus, in less than four months, 
the whole of France was traversed, and oppressed, aud 
trampled upon, in all its small towns and villages. 

The orders issued were precisely the same as before 
the revocation. On the 21st of October, Louvois 
writes to the intendant of Rouen; — ' His Majesty would 
be much pleased if the religionists of the chief places 
could be induced to become converts by common deli- 
beration ; and if not, he would like attempts to be made 
to convert the' greater number, without persisting in 



IN LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS. 171 

making converts to the very last person, by excessive 
quart erings, .... He would like the great merchants 
and such of the manufacturers as are most beneficial to 
the province, to be spared to the utmost ; so that you 
may perceive that his Majesty would rather have four or 
five hundred of the twenty thousand religionists in your 
department, remain unconverted at present, than have 
very considerable acts of violence committed, in order 
to accomplish making converts of all.' This intendant 
w T as the same Marillac who had been subjected to the 
disgrace of being recalled, for having made the first 
essay of the Dragonades when in Poitou, and we find 
him restored and placed in this new intendance, after the 
miracles wrought by that terrible invention. 

A ray of light seems to fall on this revolution from 
the fact, that whenever the exigencies of business made 
it necessary that an order should issue directly from 
the king, without ministerial intervention, ministerial 
rigour disappears, and we can recognise the character 
of Louis XIV. * I do not send vou,' are the words of 
Louvois in a letter to Noailles, dated 28th October, ' I 
do not send you the orders you have asked for against 
the gentils-hommes, who continue to be of the pretended 
reformed religion ; the king being of opinion that as 
long as they remain submissive, we ought to deal with 
them only in the way of gentleness/ 

Another letter, to the intendant of Champagne, dated 
23d November, informs us that at the very time when 
the Dragonades were soon to cease, and were employed 
with redoubled rigour, the king forbade the employ- 
ment, in the conversions by quart erings, of those courts 
of the provost marshal! (Marechaussees) whose simple 
intervention and presence would have proclaimed the 
necessity of instant obedience or punishment. 

i 2 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Legal consequences of the edict of revocation on Protestant 
marriages. — Singular precipitation of that measure, and 
its causes. — Complaints against the edict of revocation 
as too tolerant. — The Duke of Noailles sends up a me- 
morial against it. — Reply sent by Louvois. — The edict 
contravened, and the reformed remonstrate in vain. — 
The reformed deprived of their children. —Emigration 
continues in spite of all obstacles. — Horrible law 
against death-bed relapses. — Its severity somewhat 
tempered. 

The edict that repealed that of Nantes, still preserved 
some small degree of toleration in the kingdom. It 
forbade the public exercise of the Protestant religion, 
but did not affect private worship. The Protestants 
were allowed to remain in France without molestation on 
account of their religion. It invited those who had fled 
from their country to return to it, under promise of 
liberty of conscience to this extent. In obliging them 
to have their children baptised in our churches, it did 
not suppose they could have any scruple in this respect, 
since, on both sides, the validity of baptism was main- 
tained, by whomsoever it might be administered. Pro- 
vision was soon made, by a new declaratory law, for 
their burial, but no mention was made of their mar- 
riages, and the first step taken beyond the limits of the 
plan first proposed, led to an inextricable difficulty. The 



PROTESTANT MARRIAGES. 173 

truth is, in the legitimate union of the two sexes, the 
civil contract is what is mainly regarded by every po- 
litical power. But in addition to this, the Roman church 
regards it as a sacrament administered to adults. The 
king did not consider himself authorized to command 
heretics to receive, or his clergy to administer to them 
this sacrament ; and never did the clergy dare, in the 
course of that reign, to ask the king to declare that 
the simple contract should not for them possess suffi- 
cient validity. In spite of all the efforts people have 
had it in their power to make during a whole century, 
at this weak side, at last, the whole frail edifice of the 
dissembled conversions has crumbled into ruins. 

The edict of revocation was silent on this important 
point, yet closely as it followed the order in council 
published the month before in favour of Calvinist mar- 
riages, it does not contain a single regulation implying 
that the legislator had retracted that order. That order 
was neither confirmed nor abrogated ; and had the 
Protestants, whether those who had never left the 
country, or those who returned, presented a requite to 
the king ; if they had craved the performance of the 
promise he had made, to allow them to live unmolested in 
France, ' there to continue their commerce, and enjoy 
their property, without trouble or hindrance, under pre- 
text of their religion/ could so just a king have refused a 
legal form for transmitting to their children, their name, 
rank, and possessions ? 

All their ministers were banished from the kingdom ; 
but, prior to the revocation, they had been banished in 
like manner from the interdicted districts, and on a 
simple request to that effect by some of the inhabitants, 
a pastor was allowed them, under certain conditions, for 
their marriages. Could the same attention have been 



174 SINGULARITIES ATTENDING 

refused to a like request from the whole of the Pro- 
testants in the kingdom ? Thus it would appear that 
Chateauneuf (who drew up the order) reserved to him- 
self this way of returning to the system which Louvois' 
precipitation had compelled him for a time to abandon. 

All the other draughts of edicts now found in the 
archives, are preceded and accompanied with memorials, 
discussions, and notes, explaining their principles, shew- 
ing the grounds of their various clauses, seeking to ob- 
viate the smallest difficulties, pointing out before-hand 
how to meet all inconveniences ; but on that you find 
neither note nor argument ; from all which we may not 
only gather a new proof of the precipitation with which 
it was issued, but as it appears to me, a proof, too, of the 
secret differences of opinion which prevailed among the 
members of the council . Care was taken to keep in- 
surmountable obstacles out of view, and not to urge the 
inconveniences attending a resolution which flattered 
the piety of the king. The inextricable difficulties of 
the measure were not discussed in any memorial, and 
with the help of a fatal silence which each was to inter- 
pret according to his own humour, and in his own way, 
there was a semblance of agreement for the sake of 
unity of co-operation, though the objects pursued were 
different. 

In Paris, the lieutenant of police commanded the chief 
merchants to meet together, in order that he might 
confirm to them, by word of mouth, all the favourable 
clauses of the edict, and to assure them that they had 
nothing to fear. Meanwhile, Louvois, who had been 
cunning enough the year before, to impute the employ- 
ment of severe measures to Chateauneuf, as a fault, now 
sought to blame him from preserving some small re- 
mains of toleration amid so much rigour. Circum- 



THE EDICT OF REVOCATION. 175 

stances favoured this jealous and restless ambition, for 
in the intervening time between the signing of thee 
edict and its publication, the king continued to receive 
tidings upon tidings of these innumerable conversions. 
He received the very promise we quoted from the reports 
sent up by Noailles ; the positive promise of the conver- 
sion of the Cevennes, and of all Languedoc. By com- 
paring the dates, we find it must have reached Paris 
just as the edict was making its way in the provinces ; 
and thus it becomes evident that the less rigid clauses 
seemed to be published at the wrong time. 

All who were devoted to the persecuting party, to- 
gether with such as either from sentiment or conviction 
adopted their principles, immediately complained of this 
remnant of toleration. The new intendant of Langue- 
doc, wrote as follows; — 'This edict, which the new 
converts did not expect, particularly the clause pro- 
hibiting the molestation of the religionaries, has caused 
a stir among them which it will take some time to ap- 
pease. Most of them had become converts under the 
idea, that the king desired that there should be but one 
religion in the kingdom. When they saw it was other- 
wise, they were seized with remorse at having been so 
hasty ; and this for the present keeps them away from 
the exercises of our religion.' The Duke of Noailles 
drew up a memorial to be laid before the king. That 
family which has been raised to such a pitch of con- 
sideration by so many dignities, by so many services 
done to the state, and so many hereditary virtues, will, 
no doubt, from respect to the importance of the subject, 
forgive this, severe discussion of writings which it has 
itself been at the pains to publish. Its ancestors fol- 
lowed the impulse of the age, that of the greater part 
of the nation, that of almost all the clergy. We shall 



176 THE PERSECUTIONS NOT SUSPENDED 

perceive in what follows, that the Cardinal de Noailles 5 
brought Louis XIV. to entertain more moderate senti- 
ments ; that he gave him a horror for persecution at the 
risk of being himself its victim. Let us not forget that 
another Marshal de Xoaiiles ever proved a constant ad- 
vocate for toleration in the court of Louis XV. So 
that posterity may pardon the first Marshal de Noailles 
for his dragonnades, and still more for his memorial, in 
the recollection of his brother's and his nephew's efforts 
to bring back the government towards justice and hu- 
manity. He did send, however, a memorial to Louvois ; 
the object of which was to prove that this remnant of 
toleration went to undo all. The f olio van g are his very 
words: — ' They were persuaded that the king desired 
there should be but one religion in his states, and this 
single idea, after having produced innumerable conver- 
sions, determined the minds of the most obstinate daily, 
as they thought there remained no hope for them ; so 
that, hi a short while, there would not have been a 
single religionist in the whole of Languedoc,' — and he 
concludes as follows ; ' It is certain that the last clause 
of the edict forbidding the molestation of people of the 
Pretended Reformed religion, will introduce great con- 
fusion by laying an arrest on the conversions ; or by 
obliging the king to break his word which he has pledged 
in the most solemn edict possible.' 

The reply sent by Louvois was known from that time 
forward, and it was printed by the Protestants. It is 
dated November 5, and runs thus ; * I doubt not that 
some quarterings, somewhat heavy, among the few 
remaining Religionists of the noblesse and the tiers- et at , 
will undeceive them of their mistake with respect to the 
edict sent you by 3d. de Chateauneuf, and his Majesty 
desires you will explain yourself very harshly to those 



BY THE EDICT OF REVOCATION. 177 

who would be the last to profess a religion which 
displeases him, and the exercise of which he has for- 
bidden throughout his kingdom.' Another letter ad- 
dressed to the commandant of another province, runs 
thus : — ' His Majesty desires that the extremest rigours 
be inflicted on such as will not adopt his religion ; and 
such as would sottishly glory in being the last to change, 
ought to be driven to the last extremity/ 

Thus the persecution continued. ' Noailles/ say his 
own Memoirs, ' employed the terror of quarterings 
anew : in vain did several of the Religionists tell the com- 
mercial consuls that they must quarter the soldiers else- 
where, in terms of the edict, which allowed them to 
remain Calvinists, without being subjected to molesta- 
tion. ' Had any mercy been shewn them, 'said the Duke, 
5 there would infallibly have been an infinite number of 
relapses on the morrow/ But while severities were 
redoubled in virtue of private orders from Louvois, the 
other ministers continued to pursue their system. They 
did not see how the mere letters of their colleague should 
have annulled the solemn law they had passed. Per- 
haps even they were kept in ignorance ; and by a sin- 
gular contradiction, between the private letters of 
Louvois, and the solemn edicts published in the king's 
name, on the 12th of November, that is, just a week 
after these terrible letters, the king signed a new 
declaration, stipulating the formalities to be observed 
by persons of the Pretended Reformed religion, who 
after having fled into foreign parts, wished to ac- 
cept the invitation of the edict of revocation and return 
to France, retaining their religion, and recovering 
their property. It was recorded in Parliament on the 
28th of Nov. and on the month following there ap- 
peared that other declaration, pointing out the new 

i 5 



178 PASTORS RETURN IN DISGUISE. 

forms to be followed in recording the day of a person 's 
decease ; and putting the registration of burials on the 
same footing with that previously adopted for marriages. 

But the ascendancy of Louvois did not fail for a time 
completely to overbear all his colleagues ; and this de- 
plorable course being once adopted, one legal severity 
necessarily followed another. It was found neces- 
sary to command all the children of the Religionists, 
and bad converts, to be taken from them, which law 
it was found impossible to execute : all the colleges put 
together, and, joined to these, all the hospitals in the 
country, had neither room enough to lodge, nor funds 
enough to maintain them, so that nearly all remained 
at home with then* parents. 

It was soon understood that a considerable number 
of pastors had re-entered the kingdom ; that they es- 
caped by all manner of devices the detection of the 
police, availing themselves of all sorts of disguises 
and passing for beggars, pilgrims, officers, soldiers, 
dealers in images and chaplets, — a trade commoner then 
than now ; that they were never at a loss for guides to 
direct, or for landlords to receive and conceal them ; 
that they travelled under night, and often lived in woods 
and caves, and that the faithful came in crowds to 
hear them preach. These meetings, accordingly, had 
to be watched and dispersed, or put to the sword, and 
the pastors overawed by the punishment of such as 
were seized ; a legal price had to be offered in some 
sort for their heads, 

The endeavours that were used to check emigration 
were hardly more successful. In vain were guards 
placed along the frontiers and sea- coast ; in vain was 
proclamation made that foreign powers refused giving an 
asylum to French refugees, that they were every-where 



Vain attempts to stop emigration. 179 

left without employment or means of support, that 
above ten thousand had died in England, partly from 
the severity of the climate and the fatigues endured in 
making their escape, but chiefly from misery and hun- 
ger ; that the greater number were ready to return tc 
France, craved leave to do so, promised to abjure, — a 
formality which had become indispensable to their re- 
turn ; and that, in fine, this tide was beginning to flow 
back on itself, — a delusive hope, with which Louis XIV. 
had been unceasingly flattered. These reports were 
industriously propagated, but found little credence, and 
the more the means that were devised to retain those 
who meditated evasion, the more did these intending 
emigrants multiply the correspondences by which 
they might succeed ; they had sure inns, chosen guides, 
fixed places of rendezvous, roads never known before ; 
and by and bye it became necessary, in order to check 
this disastrous emigration more rigorouslv, to deprive all 
the new converts of the free disposal of their property ; 
an ordinance which has been renewed everv three years 
down to our own days. 

Meanwhile the delusion of the feigned conversions 
was about to vanish in a moment. People were scan- 
dalized, and perhaps alarmed too, on learning that the 
greater part of those who had abjured, when in the ex- 
tremity of death refused to receive the sacraments of 
the church, and declared that they had all along been 
attached to the Pretended Reformed religion ; all fear, 
every human consideration, ceasing on their death- beds, 
the poor creatures allowed the mask to fall off, and 
paid this last homage to their own religion. It was 
hoped that they might be restrained by threats the most 
likely to disquiet a dying person, and to alarm the 
family surrounding his death-bed, and on this occasion 



180 A MILITARY INQUISITION 

the terrible law was past, bearing that ' they who shall 
refuse the sacraments of the church in case of sickness 
shall after death be dragged on a hurdle, and their 
goods shall be confiscated ; and in case of their re- 
covery, they shall be condemned to make the amende 
honorable, the men to be sent to the galleys for life, 
the women to perpetual confinement, and both to have 
their goods confiscated. 5 

The notes laid before the king, to obtain his signa- 
ture to this horrible law, deserve being quoted. On 
the clause imposing the penalty of the galleys and con- 
fiscation of body and goods, there was this note : ' The 
same penalty as for those who quit the kingdom without 
leave ; ' on the penalty of being dragged on a hurdle, 
it is noted : ' The same as for duels ; that is to say, 
a dijf amatory trial at law, deprived of burial, dragged in 
a hurdle, and hung up by the heels? and it is added, 
( That the council of Lateran decided that those who did 
not keep Easter should be deprived of Christian burial? 

Such were the results of the first declaration on the 
relapsed, past at the commencement of the king's reign,, 
and craved and obtained on very different grounds from 
what now became the object in view, and even that 
was not the point at which a final stop was made. One 
necessary consequence of the same principle was that 
they had to be restricted during life to all the duties of 
Catholicity ; but how could the most vigilant adminis- 
tration have compelled two hundred thousand families 
daily to repeat the formalities of a religion which they 
had first been taught to abhor ? Could the hundred eyes 
of the inquisition and all its fires have sufficed for this ? 
Nevertheless, some public functionaries in the south 
immediately gave orders for the military being thus em- 
ployed, and accordingly drew up a regulation on the 



ESTABLISHED IN THE SOUTH* 181 

Easter communion, established parish inspectors who 
were to enquire whether the new converts went to mass 
and the catechism, how they conducted themselves there, 
and if they yearly, and every day of the year, regularly 
went through all the duties imposed on Roman Catho- 
lics by their religion. 

Excesses are ever the prelude to revolutions ; and 
forthwith the king saw with, surprise, that, far from his 
inclinations, he had been brought to the very verge of 
establishing the inquisition in France. There he halted; 
and in spite of the strange contradiction implied in 
exacting from the dying, the duties of a religion which 
the living were not forced to follow, the king ordered a 
prompt, yet secret repeal of all these new regulations, 
Maxims opposite to those now for some years acted 
upon, began to be secretly listened to, and an unex- 
pected change, the first causes of which we shall deve- 
lope in the next chapter, was gradually taking place. 
All restraint on people's habits was then removed; 
yet they were allowed to believe that it still subsisted. 
The king commanded all the intendants to be written 
to, forbidding all acts savouring of the inquisition. He 
was no less surprised to learn, that the law against the 
dying failed of its desired effect. He had consented to 
it on its being represented as a mere threat, or at least 
that a very few examples would suffice. But in most of 
our cities, the frightful spectacle was too often pre- 
sented, of corpses dragged along the streets on a hurdle. 
Too often were enraged priests to be seen, with the 
viaticum in their hands, and escorted by a judge and his 
clerks, on their way to some death-bed, and soon after, 
a fanatical populace, making a sport of being them- 
selves the executioners of the law in all its horrors, 
Thus, though such was not the wish of the government, 



182 THR KING REVOLTS AT HIS OWN LAW. 

these multiplied condemnations witnessed to the perse- 
verance of the pretended new converts in the faith of 
which it w 7 as sought to deprive them. The intendants 
were then urgently written to, with injunctions to render 
these spectacles more rare. This letter, dated 5th. 
February, 1687, will be found highly important in elu- 
cidating the sequel. 

The secretary of state who wrote it, begins with 
admitting in the king's name, that the law ' had not 
answered expectation ; his Majesty has retreated, in 
some sort, from the execution of that declaration, and 
commands me to write to you, that whenever any new 
convert shall have declared, in a very open manner, that 
he wishes to die in the said religion, and that his rela- 
tions ostentatiously and boastfully proclaim the fact, the 
law must be rigorously executed ; but as for such as 
make the above declaration from mere obstinacy, and 
are censured by their relations, it will be well to allow 
the case to pass without notice or process, and to this 
effect his Majesty thinks it right that you should warn 
the ecclesiastics not to be so ready on these occasions 
to call on magistrates to be witnesses, so as to avoid 
being obliged to execute the declaration in its whole 
extent. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Absolute influence at court of the Jesuit, La Chaise. — Hor- 
ror felt by the Jansenists at the impiety of the conver- 
sion laws. — The Jansenist doctrine on that subject finds 
secret abettors at court. — Character and conduct of 
Fenelon. — His influence with Mme. de Maintenon. — 
D'Aguesseau's influence in the same quarter. — Some of 
the civil and ecclesiastical authorities oppose the dra- 
gonades. — Louvois* credit at court declines. — Alarm 
caused by the League of Augsburg in 1688. — The new 
converts suspected and disarmed. — Vauban's memorial 
and powerful representation of the alarming state of 
France. 

Thus was Louis XIV. led on by this zeal for conver- 
sions, against his inclination and his principles, into an 
intolerance, from whose rigours he at first revolted. 
An absolute control was then exercised by the Jesuit, 
La Chaise, in nominating to church livings and in reli- 
gious affairs. We find Mme. de Maintenon writing 
thus, 2nd February, 1687. ' Father La Chaise has 
more of the king's confidence than ever. He is to act 
in future without the Archbishop of Paris, and Mme. de 
Lesdiquieres will no longer have the clergy of France 
at her knees You may well believe that this 



184 HORROR FELT BY THE JANSENISTS. 

great favour is about to place the whole world at the 
feet of the society.' * 

Meanwhile the Jansenists were horrified with laws 
which they thought sacrilegious, and prophesied that no 
success would attend means which they declared to be 
contrary to the sanctity of religion. They insisted that 
the numbers of the Calvinists were diminished, only by 
that of those who had fled ; that even such of them as 
apparently yielded, had their horror for our mysteries 
only augmented by their dissimulation, profaned as they 
were by ourselves ; that to this natural dislike to our 
faith, there was added remorse and rage at having per- 
jured themselves in embracing it ; in fine, that an 
enterprise founded on profanation, must inevitably give 
way under the divine malediction. Their known max- 
ims enjoined that the holy sacraments should be ap- 
proached only with sacred awe, and with the conviction 
that man is almost always unworthy of them. Per- 
suaded that even the fear of God is not a pure enough 
feeling to be offered to him, — that he desires no homage 
but our love, they gave no place among religious senti- 
ments to terror of the galleys, infamy and ruin. They 
detested the amende honorable, military quarterings, and 
the dragging of the dead on hurdles ; and in their writ- 
ings we are told that their hair stood on end at the 
very thought of such forced communions. 

Even at the court, their views found abettors, and 
were maintained without fanaticism, indiscreet zeal or 
animosity, by men whom the king esteemed and re- 



* Of course the society of Jesuits. No doubt the British empire 
was specially included in the expression ' whole world.' The writer 
was little aware, that at that very time the Jesuits, "by the alarm and 
disgust they were creating in England, were hastening the revolution 
f 1688.— Ed. 



THEIR DOCTRINE INFLUENCES THE COURT. 185 

spected for their intelligence and virtue. Not that Jan- 
senism dared openly to avow itself, for it was still pro- 
scribed in name, but that the king had less aversion to 
its fundamental principles ever since being relieved from 
the apprehension of a new schism. Thus these con- 
cealed Jansenists succeeded in timidly obtaining a hear- 
ing for their opinions. What they temperately repre- 
sented was often favourably received ; and although the 
king's personal character at first sufficed for the removal 
of all sanguinary coercion, and although the legislative 
principles prevailing in his council, prevented any con- 
founding of the rights of the two powers from taking 
place with regard to marriages, the toleration which ere 
long revived, and subsisted to the last months of that 
reign, must be traced to maxims insinuated by the Jan- 
senists ; not, as some thought, because they were them- 
selves persecuted, but because such toleration flowed 
necessarily from their doctrine, that forced obedience 
was no evidence of faith or love. 

Ambition had seduced Mme. de Maintenon from their 
maxims, but her natural disposition brought her back to 
them. Her letters shew how quickly she changed, 
when, though still laying herself out to please, she no 
longer needed to seduce, and could therefore resume her 
true character. She writes thus to her relation, M. de 
Vilette : ' You are a convert ; meddle no more with 
the conversion of other people. I confess I love not to 
charge myself towards God, or before the king, with all 
such conversions as these.' Can we imagine this the 
same woman whom we have seen so fervid in the con- 
version cause, as to applaud the employment of the 
most deplorable means ? It was now that she became 
intimate with two men of very different characters, but 
whose principles nearly coincided in several points. One 



186 fenelon's friends at court. 

was the Abbe de Fenelon, who always exhorted her to 
infuse into the king ' a distrust of harsh and violent 
counsels, and horror for acts of arbitrary power.' 

The commencement of this famous intimacy meets us 
agreeably here, and even in pursuing these elucidations, 
it is well that the reader should fully understand the 
principles of the singular revolution which was now in 
progress. The most intimate associates Mme. de 
Maintenon then had at Versailles, are known to have 
been the Duchesses of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse, both 
daughters of Colbert, and sisters of Seignelai, Both 
had in her eye the rare merit of never having paid court 
to Mme. de Montespan, and after being long kept at a 
distance from the king by that reserve, they were 
restored to his good graces through the interest of 
Mme. de Maintenon. Of these two sisters, indeed of 
that whole family, a family closely united in themselves, 
though isolated as regarded the rest of society, and who 
rose at length to the enjoyment of the highest credit, 
the Abbe de Fenelon was the oracle. Young as yet, he 
had wavered for some time between the Jesuits and the 
Jansenists, while the former, who commanded all eccle- 
siastical favours, gave him but a cold reception, and the 
latter, who had no court interest but a great reputation 
in the world, were beginning to usher him into it. To 
the latter he was not absolutely devoted ; he did not 
coincide in all their opinions, but he had not as yet 
adopted that of Quietism ; his gentle soul was touched 
with their pure love, and he was naturally drawn into a 
coincidence with their maxims on the subjects of 
instruction and of Christian toleration, by his insinua- 
tive talents, his persuasive eloquence, and his indulgent 
virtue. Shortly after the revocation, he went as a mis- 
sionary into Saintonge, Rochelle, and the pays d'Aunlv. 



HIS MISSION INTO SAINTONGE. 187 

What has been said of that part of his life, savours more 
of panegyric than of faithful history, his early career 
having had thrown upon it much of the glory he legi- 
timately acquired afterwards. All that was temperate, 
noble, and wise on that occasion, has been exaggerated, 
which it did not need. It is not true that two provinces 
were by his endeavours preserved from the calamities of 
persecution, and that it was on this condition only that 
he accepted his mission. He was too remote as yet 
from the elevation of fortune, credit, and influence, 
which he afterwards reached, to impose conditions on 
the government ; and, indeed, had his zeal possessed 
the kind of firmness attributed to him, he never would 
have been employed ; his good qualities would have 
remained useless. 

The oppression of Rochelle arid the two adjacent pro- 
vinces, was consummated before he began his journey, 
for by that time Louvois had withdrawn the troops that 
they might be sent into other generalities, ' in order 
(as he says in his letter to the commandants, dated 
Nov. 3, 1685) that what had been done to the re- 
ligionists in Pictou and the Pays d'Aunix, might be done 
in these.' The reports sent from Rochelle to the 
ministry towards the middle of December, bear; ' I 
hardly find any more of the religionists at Rochelle, 
since making it my practice to give money to such as 
discover and deliver them to me when I put the men in 
prison, and send the women and girls to convents, ac- 
cording to the desire, and by authority of the bishop/ 
Thus Fenelon did not preserve these provinces from the 
general oppression ; he did what was better for his own 
glory, in departing from the maxims of persecution, and 
pursuing quite an opposite course on arriving amid its 
scenes. We have discovered his reports, some of which 



188 fenelon's account of his mission. 

being addressed to Mme. de Beauvilliers, must un- 
doubtedly have been submitted to Mme. de Maintenon, 
and may thus have contributed to the speedy rise of the 
young missionary. We have already quoted what he 
says of the Roman Catholic clergy of that country. Let 
us add what follows : ' In our sermons we try to avoid 
the contentious appearance of controversy. We draw 
our proofs from simple explanations, and combine with 
these, affectionate appeals ; we insinuate all that is re- 
quired to make men good catholics, while our sole 
object seems to be to make them good Christians ; all 
this hardly suffices to incline people's minds towards 
us ; so thoroughly have they been exasperated. We 
everywhere meet with an incredible attachment to 
heresy. The more a preacher moves their feelings, the 
more unwilling are they to return and listen to him. 
Their great proverb is that we ought to flee from the 
voice of enchanters. 5 * His mission was not long of 
being traduced by the Jesuits, so that after his name 
had been put down for the bishoprick of Poitiers, it was 
erased by father la Chaise, and even the king from 
that time was prejudiced against him. He was reduced 
at last to the humiliation of writing an apologetic letter 
for the king's perusal, and there it is sad to behold 
him, not indeed dissemble his feelings, but fritter down 
the expression of them, defend them only while stating 

* The Journal des Debats, some years ago, adverted to a blot in 
Fenelon's character, shewing that even he could look on and sanction 
scenes of most refined cruelty. In another of his letters describing 
this mission, he gives an account of a poor Protestant pastor, whom 
fear probably had made a convert, and who was paraded about from 
place to place, for the ignoble purpose of turning the Protestant doc- 
trines into popular ridicule, by making him their spokesman at pre- 
tended conferences. The people were encouraged to revile and sneer 
at him for having ever preached such doctrines. — Ed. 



fenelon's character overrated. 189 

his readiness to renounce them, and shew his address 
in approximating the party to which he was really op- 
posed. Thus his indulgent and moderate virtue was 
more pliable than it is alleged to have been, and to 
secure being useful, could, on occasions, be time-serving. 
After this, a change may be remarked in his correspond- 
ence, and his embarrassment perpetually reveals itself. 
At times you would suppose he recommended the 
maxims of intolerance and persecution ; but in this we 
must not misapprehend him. The truth is, he proposed 
some rigours only to put himself thereby in a position 
to abolish the sacrilegious rigour then in use. 

Soon after his return, Fenelon was admitted to the 
most intimate confidence of Mme. de Maintenon. 
Among her letters may be found the rules of conduct he 
gave her, and they contain a passage of great importance, 
though so lost, as it were, in the confusion of a faulty 
edition, that it becomes interesting only when connected 
with the circumstances under which these counsels were 
given. That interest is such that I cannot avoid giving 
it here in its true place. 

1 You ought,' he says, ' to follow the general cur- 
rent of affairs in order to temper what is excessive, and 
to put to rights whatever needs redress. You ought, 
without ever allowing yourself to be discouraged, to im- 
prove whatever God puts into your own heart, and 
whatever access he gives you to that of the king, for 
the purpose of opening his eyes and enlightening him, 
but without being over urgent, as I have often told 
you. Beyond this, as the king acts far less according 
to any consistent maxims, than according to the 
impressions he receives from those around him, or 
to whom he intrusts his authority, the main point 
is to lose no opportunity of placing about him 



190 fenelon's counsels to mme. de maintenon, 

sure persons who will go along with you in your 
endeavours to make him fulfil, in all their extent, those 
duties of which he has no idea. If he is prejudiced in 
favour of those who commit so many acts of violence 
and injustice, so many gross faults, soon he might be- 
come still more prepossessed in favour of such as should 
follow the rules of justice, and stimulate him to what 
is good. Hence I am persuaded you will gain a great 
point if you can augment the influence of M. 3,1. Cher- 
reuse and Beauvilliers. It is for you to suit yourself 
to the time ; but if simplicity and frankness cannot 
manage to effect this, I should prefer waiting until God 
shall have prepared the king's heart. In fine, the great 
matter is to besiege him since it is his wish to be be- 
sieged, and to govern him, since he desires to be 
governed. His salvation depends on his being besieged 
by people of honest and upright views.' 

The other person who then enjoyed IMnie. deMainte- 
non's favour, though less as a confident than as a per- 
son esteemed for his wisdom and intelligence, was the 
same M. d'Aguesseau, who applied to be recalled from 
Languedoc, that he might be excused from participating 
in the violent proceedings there. He owed his first 
public employments to Colbert, and we all know how 
much the destiny of nations depends on personal con- 
nexions and hereditary friendships. The new posts he 
soon after occupied, such as the administration of the 
oeconomats, which he obtained on the death of Pelisson, 
the directorship of the property of emigrant religionists, 
and, above all, the administration of the Duke of 
Maine's property, brought him into frequent connexion 
with Mme. de Maintenon. Being known to lean to 
Jansenism, it was long suspected that some dislike to 
M. de Baville was mingled with the excellence and 



d'aguesseau's counsels and influence. 191 

piety of his views. M. de Baville succeeded him in 
Languedoc, held different opinions, and, as we have 
said, owed his promotion to Louvois. 

D'Aguesseau seized all opportunities of giving scope 
to his system. In 1686, he maintained, in a very wise 
memorial, that the constraint laid on the new converts 
was impious. ' There is but one difficulty/ says he, 
* and that is to persuade them : all else is not conver- 
sion ; all else, being but external and in the power of 
government to effect, when it precedes persuasion, in- 
stead of advancing the work, only retards and spoils 
it. . . . What then is to be done ? Why, — teach them, 
edify them, give them instruction, suppress their daily 
efforts to meet and strengthen each other. But some 
will say, this is a slow process. I reply, it will prove 
speedier than one would think. Recovering from their 
grief and exasperation on ceasing to be molested, they 
will make approaches, and prove willing to listen, where 
now they retire or shut their ears. But, indeed, no 
way ought to be regarded as too slow, when it is the 
only one that leads to the point to be reached ; others 
may be faster, but they lead astray/ 

Thus originated the revolution which now slowly 
commenced, Mme. de Maintenon having participated 
too much in the means hitherto employed, to venture on 
a sudden retreat. She required the aids of time, in- 
sinuation, and address, and finding that she must either 
ruin Louvois, or make him submit, the former seemed 
the easier task of the two. It took long to accomplish 
it, and his credit, as often happens in courts, reached its 
highest pitch just as his fall was secretly preparing ; 
and thus, notwithstanding secret retractations in which 
Louvois himself no doubt concurred, the system of 
rigour seemed more and more to prevail. Without 



192 PROTESTANTISM REMAINS UNSUPPRESSED. 

weakening by any declararation such clauses in the 
edict of revocation as were still favourable to the Calvi- 
nists, the provincial intendants and commandants were 
still secretly authorised to violate that recent law in 
their persons. A hundred gentils-hommes whose indo- 
mitable firmness presented such an example to the pro- 
vinces as produced alarm, were imprisoned in fortresses ; 
those who had connexions at court obtained leave to go 
abroad, and some obstinate burgesses, also, were expa- 
triated. This done, people would have made Louis XIV. 
believe that heresy was extinct, just as they would have 
made Charles IX. believe the same thing on the night of 
St. Bartholomew. But in vain did all who spoke to the 
king about his Calvinist subjects avoid the word heretics, 
and affect calling them ' those who professed the Pre- 
tended Reformed Religion.' Facts soon gave the lie to 
faithless and flattering statements ; and no sooner had 
this new storm passed, than the still numerous remains 
of the Calvinist s forced themselves on men's astonished 
regards. It was found that the orders of imprisonment 
and exile had fallen on some select victims only, and 
that the dragonades had crushed only the small towns 
and country villages ; that though in some of the large 
cities the chief citizens had been sent for and threatened, 
there, as elsewhere, the multitudes had taken advantage 
of the obscurity of their condition to escape persecu- 
tion. In some places, too, it was discovered that the 
pretended converters had been content with equivocal 
abjurations in which the reformed had reserved part of 
their opinions, and that amid the worst violence of the 
Dragonades, several commandants of troops had miti- 
gated their horrors, such as the Marquis of Beuvron in 
Normandy, and the Bishop of St. Pont, Percin de 
Montgaillard, who constantly opposed the employment 



THE NEW CONVERTS DISARMED. 193 

of such odious means in his diocese. In one word, the 
statements sent up to the court during the concluding 
years of that century, prove that many Calvinists still 
outlived the storms that had assaailed them, and even 
appealed to the laws to secure them from being molested 
in their religion. Louis the XlVth acknowledged this 
among the families most honoured with his confidence. 
In 1695, he used to say that ' he received many com- 
plaints against the missionaries, and that they made 
few conversions.' But, generally speaking, he main- 
tained a profound silence on the subject, so as to draw 
from Mme. de Maintenon the remark : ' People think 
to annihilate things by saying nothing about them.' 

That more numerous multitude whom violence and 
fear had disguised with the mask of Roman Catholicism, 
no less embarrassed the government, and on the first 
movement of the general league formed against France in 
1688, Louis XIV. began to dread the same persons 
under the name of new converts, whom he had never 
found cause to dread under that of Pretended Reformed. 
It was then that the very people who while left in the 
free exercise of their heresy, had given to their country 
a Du Quesne, and a Turenne, were suddenly disarmed, 
and it was thought necessary to exclude from the 
smallest municipal offices, after their abjuration, those 
who had in that same century given to the kingdom 
a Sully. Zealous citizens, headed by Marshall Vauban, 
hesitated not, at such a terrible conjuncture, to propose 
the retractation of all the proceedings of the preceding 
nine years, the rebuilding of the Protestant churches, 
the recall of the ministers, leave to all who had abjured 
their religion under co-ercion only, to adopt w T hich of 
the two they chose, a general amnesty to all refugees, 
not excepting those who were in arms against France 



194 MARSHALL VAUBAN's MEMORIAL. 

and the deliverance from the galleys, and rehabilitat: 
of all who had been condemned to them on that melan- 
choly account. 

Vauban had the noble assurance to present 
memorial to Louvois. He deplores in it the desertion 
of a hundred thousand French, the abstraction of sixty 
millions,* the ruin of commerce, the addition to the 
enemies' fleets of nine thousand of the best seamen France 
possessed, and to their armies of six hundred officers. 
and twelve thousand soldiers, more inured to war t'_ 
their own. He says that the forcing of conversions 
had a general horror for the part which eccle- 

siastics had taken in it. and a belief that they have no 
faith in sacraments which they make a sport of pro- 
faning ; that if the plan is to be followed out, the pre- 
tended new converts must be exterminated as rebels. 
banished as relapsed, or imprisoned like maniacs. 
execrable projects, contrary to all Christian virtue. 
morality, and civilization, dangerous to religion itself 
shice sects ever extend under persecution ; and th: 
new census of the Huguenots taken after the massacre 
ol St. Bartholowmew's day, proved that they had in- 
creased by one hundred and ten thousand : that but one 
course remained, a course recommended alike by chari- 
ty, expediency, and sound policy, and that was to give 
them contentment : ' and he concludes thus ; — 
prudence that knows when to retract and yield to cir- 
cumstances, is a main point in the art of govern- 
ment , 

A law equally favourable to the new converts and to 
the remaining Protestants, a law calculated to put an 
end to the emigrations, was passed at this crisis : but 

: .: aterime 



DEATHS OF LOUVOIS AXD SEIGNELAI. 195 

the success of the war soon re-assured men's minds. 
Luxemburg, Catinat, Tourville, Jean Bart, and the 
very fidelity of the Protestants, a fidelity which their 
bitterest enemies were compelled to praise, saved France 
from the ruin which threatened her. Still, evils too in- 
sufferable, and a state of things too violent to last long, 
demanded and received attention. But it was now that 
both Louvois, whose ambition had caused almost all 
the jmischief, and whose genius might have devised a 
remedy, and Signelai, already his competitor, and 
whose great talents gave promise of his replacing Col- 
bert, died. The royal council was almost wholly com- 
posed of new men, and the intention of remedying a 
disorder which remained still to be deplored, the 
lengthened out deliberations on the subject, and the 
new laws resolved upon, revived the deplorable quarrels 
between the two parties which divided the church ; and 
the contrariety of their religious opinions continued to 
produce in this affair, as much, nay, more confusion 
than was caused by the jealousy of credit and autho- 
rity. 

In order to develope the events of this other period, 
and to shew how this confusion and the misunderstand- 
ings it occasioned, finally produced, under the last 
reign, (that of Louis XV.) a kind of persecution till 
then unheard of, — to shew how so large a part of the 
French nation found itself consigned to a civil death, 
we shall place before our readers, in the remaining part 
of these Historical Elucidations, the general report on 
that subject, which was presented to the king by the 
Baron de Bretuil in October 1786. The elucidations 
we shall add will have for their object the farther de- 
velopement of some interesting historical facts, of which 
that minister had to present such only to his Majesty, 

K 2 



196 FRENCH PROTESTANTISM IN THE 18th CENTURY. 

as were necessary to enlighten his judgment and to 
guide his benevolence.* 

* It does not fall within the scope of these Memorials to describe the 
state of civil death to which French Protestants were consigned dur- 
ing nearly the whole of the 18th century. The English reader may 
consult, Historical Memorial of the most remarkable proceedings 
against the Protestants in France from the year 1744 to 1751, trans- 
lated from the French original, printed at Amsterdam. Dublin, 
1752.'— Ed. 



No. II. 
EXTRACTS 

FROM 

REFLECTIONS ON THE CRUEL PERSECUTION 

NOW ENDURED BY THE 

REFORMED CHURCH OF FRANCE, 5 &c. 
(originally published in 1686.) 



Besides that the limits of this volume do not admit of the insertion 
of the whole of the above 6 Reflections? 8{C. that part of the work 
which reviews the acts of the Roman Catholic clergy, will find a more 
appropriate place in another volume of these Memorials, should it be 
called for. — See Introduction. — Ed. 



Putting aside, then, the memorials presented by the 
clergy, I come to their addresses. One of these, de- 
livered by the Bishop of Valence, informs the king that 
the recent greatness of that prince which dazzles the 
orator, does not arise from his conquests, but from the 
countless host of conversions effected by his orders, his 
anxious attention and his liberality. Admirable conver- 
sions indeed, and such as afforded ample ground for 
felicitation to the king ; conversions for which we 
are indebted to blows inflicted with bars and blud- 
geons ! This same Bishop had good opportunities of 
knowing all that was to be known on the subject, hav- 
ing been himself the grand instrument of the furious 
proceedings in Dauphiny, the Vivarais, and the Ce- 



198 MISREPRESENTATION AND SLANDER 

vermes. Fine converts they must be, with respect to 
whom the clergy have to petition the king that his 
majesty would be pleased to order penalties to be im- 
posed on such new converts as perform no act of the Catho- 
lic religion. If the number of such be small, why have 
recourse to penalties where they are so little needed ? 
But if great, ought they not to be ashamed to congratu- 
late the king on the subject of conversions, admitted by 
themselves to be simulated and profane, inasmuch as 
they have been extorted. 

Under the head of conversions, the orator goes on to 
sav, s I am well aware that I should search past ages in 
vain : in vain should I call to my aid all the eulogies pro- 
nounced on the first and the holiest of emperors! He is 
right, for in vain, indeed, might he try to find a parallel 
in the lives of those emperors, to what the clergy of 
France are now doing in their abuse of the king's autho- 
rity. He will no where find that Constantine let loose 
the Roman legions on the Pagans of the empire, or 
abandoned to the rage and fury of soldiers, all who did 
not choose to become Christians. He will nowhere find 
that Theodosius, though he shewed some severity to- 
wards the Arians, compelled them to renounce Arianism 
by fire, and sword, and by tortures more terrible than 
death. ' To speak in the true spirit of the church? says 
this declaimer, ' the king's conquests are all nothing, 
and not to be thought worth reckoning, compared with 
his being the restorer of the churchy and the exterminator 
of heresy.' How can we account for this ? Is it pre- 
possession, or prejudice, or the madness of passion, or 
hypocrisy and cunning ? How can ever compelling 
people to adopt the faith, and forcing them to attend 
mass by all imaginable punishments, and letting loose 
upon them armies of executioners, be called the spirit of 



OF THE BISHOP OF VALENCE. 199 

the church ? What church ever acted thus ? That of 
Jesus Christ, which forbids men to use the sword ? Or 
that of the apostles who employed for the conversion of 
the nations only the word, and their own constancy and 
martyrdom ? Is it the spirit of the church to plunder, 
abuse, and beat people, as a means of inspiring them 
with piety ? Is this the spirit of Him who was meek 
and lowly, — to bum the goods, the persons, and the 
bodies of men for the purpose of converting them, as is 
done this day ? That it is the spirit of the Church of 
Rome, I admit, and here we behold her returning to her 
own spirit and character ; here we see the Church of 
Rome of the times of the Vaudois, restored to life ; the 
church of last century, pillaging and slaying, singly or 
by massacres, such as she pretends to call heretics. 
Here there is that spirit, I admit. But God be witness 
between this speech-maker and us, that never was there 
anything more opposite to the true spirit of the Church 
of Jesus Christ. 

The King, he says, ■ has raised from the dust the 
Catholic religion in France: he found the Church of 
France oppressed.' I know not how a man can he with 
such audacity. What oppression can he say the Roman 
church suffered, when the king conceived the design of 
our destruction ? It was at the time of the peace of the 
Pyrenees.* Had we at that time, like the Donatists, 
armies of Circumcellions with which to slav the priests, 
make spoil of their goods, outrage their persons, ravage 
their altars, and pull down their churches ? Where does 
he find anything of the kind ever done or attempted by 
us ? What have we been doing ever since the king 

* That peace nearly coincided with the death of Mazarin, and 
Lonis XIV's taking the administration into his own hands. For the 
King's purposes at the time, see De Rnlhiere.— Ed. 



200 MISREPRESENTATION AND SLANDER 

ascended the throne, but rendering him loyal and entire 
obedience ? The present age is already convinced, and 
the future ^vill stoutly affirm, that never was there an 
instance of such a calamity : — poor subjects who had 
never done aught inconsistent with their duty, nay, who 
had received testimonies to their loyalty from the mouth 
of their prince himself, so fallen into disfavour, as to be 
treated as if the cruellest enemies of the state. 

This malignant bishop, finding nothing to say against 
us as respects the present time, has recourse to the past, 
and gives an abridgment of the disorders of the civil 
wars caused by religion in this kingdom. It is well 
known that these persecutors continually hold us forth 
to the king's contemplation on that side, and will not 
suffer him to regard us in the light of what we can 
legitimately allege in our defence, by pointing to all we 
have done in maintaining the glory of his family, to the 
services rendered to his ancestors, to the cruelties and 
barbarities which compelled us to provide for our safety 
according to the inalienable right of self-preservation. 
They say not a word of the massacres and other violent 
proceedings of last century. They are careful to avoid 
recalling to his recollection the murderous attempts of 
our enemies against the persons of the two Henrys, 
while we opposed ourselves to the fury of those who 
wished to deprive them of their thrones. 

But nothing in this harangue is more surprising than 
the effrontery of saying that the reformed religion is 
reduced to seeing itself from thenceforth abandoned by all 
men of sense, and that without violence or arms. This, I 
maintain, is beyond all endurance. A man must have 
more than the effrontery of Babylon, to speak thus in 
the face of all Europe as it looks on, while France is 
overrun with soldiers, committing outrages on Protest- 



OF THE BISHOP OF VALENCE. 201 

ants, such as are never inflicted on conquered provinces. 
Shall we suppose that this had not yet happened at the 
time ? Alas, the man who speaks is the very Bishop of 
Valence, who himself had witnessed the worst cruelties 
committed in the Vivarais, when women, old men, chil- 
dren, people of all ages, without distinction, were slain, 
some by hanging, others on the wheel, others by torture, 
on pretence of a rebellion, falsely so called ; for never did 
these poor people of the Cevennes and the Vivarais, 
dream of doing any thing against the king's service, 
but only of preserving their freedom in regard to the 
worship of God. 

But allowing this person to make no account of the 
cruelties committed in Poitou, Dauphiny, and Langue- 
doc, was he not aware of what was to be done three 
days after that on which he spoke ? He who is a lead- 
ing man among the converters by blows, he who 
plans their projects, was he not aware of the project of 
marching dragoons into Beam, and from that into 
Guyenne, Poitou, and Saintonge, in a word, covering 
all France with soldiers, sent to compel people to go to 
mass ? Is this conversion without the use of arms or 
violence ? Can any man have the audacity to speak thus ? 
But such is the spirit of popery; violence, deceit, 
lying, bold assertions refuted by notorious facts ! Such 
is the fate reserved for us. Such the reasons for em- 
ploying the extremities of violence before all our churches 
are pulled down. That of Charenton still exists, and 
there are eight or ten others throughout the kingdom 
left, in order to keep up a sort of shadow of liberty. 
While this is the case, death and torture are every 
where threatened else to all who refuse to go to 
mass. In short, it is done merely that it may be said 
that we are converted without arms or violence, the 

k 5 



202 GROSS MISREPRESENTATIONS 

proof being that while Beam, Languedoc, Guyenne, and 
Normandy were converted, divine worship was still 
tolerated at the gates of Paris, and in divers parts of 
the kingdom. This will be said, maintained, and 
written, to the shame and confusion of the present age, 
which supplies examples of audacity never heard of 
before. 

One spirit animates these gentlemen, so that they 
form one soul rather than one body. Messire Nicolas 
Colbert, coadjutor of Rouen, who spoke next, repeated 
the same things as to the previous oppression of the 
Roman Catholic church in France, the glorious condition 
to which it had been restored by the king, and the 
bloodless victories gained by his majesty over heresy. 
These being mere repetitions, require no further re- 
marks. Yet I am tempted to make one reflection in 
favour of the orator who may have some remains of 
religious and conscientious feelings ; at least this seems 
likely when I perceive how he commends the king for 
the means he adopts for the conversion of heretics. 
' It is,' says he ' by gaining the affections of the heretics, 
that you have subdued the obstinacy of their tempers. You 
have counteracted their inveterate prejudices by benefits, 
and never perhaps would they have returned to the bosom 
of the church, but for the path strewn with flowers which 
you have opened for them / He proceeds to tell the 
king of the church's joy, at his|employing neither fire 
nor sword, and that he does not commence a holy war 
for the extermination of what remains of heresy. He 
winds up by saying, that ■ the king combats the pride of 
heresy only by the gentleness and the wisdom of govern- 
ment, and that his only arms are laws aided vjith benefits.' 
Now, I must frankly say, that hardly could any one 
who has not cast off all regard for character, carry mis- 



OF THE COADJUTOR OF ROUEN. 203 

representation to such a pitch of extravagance as this. 
A way strewed with flowers is opened for your return to 
the church ! Good heavens — what flowers ! If these 
are flowers what are we to call thorns ? M. Colbert 
appears to me to have thus expressed himself only for 
the purpose of suggesting to the king the course he 
ought to follow, and to teach him that people ought in 
fact to be induced to enter the church only by methods 
consistent with the gospel, and that those he has been 
prevailed on to employ are opposed to the spirit of 
Jesus Christ. It would appear that he meant to give 
the king a lesson by commending him for having done 
the very reverse of what he really had done. Such is 
the most favourable view we can take of this discourse, 
but few will be found to adopt it who look at these 
words : we shall take part in what will prove a holy war. 
Who can but feel indignant at a bishop giving the 
name of holy war to an order from the king, command- 
ing all to be put to the sword who refuse to go to 
mass ? 

Such is the holy war in which we are now engaged, 
and in which these gentlemen say they will take an 
ample part. Such is the motive of the king's anxiety 
to secure peace with all . his neighbours, and for his 
keeping on foot, and under arms, two hundred thousand 
men, that he may have them to let loose on all parts of 
the kingdom, where any of the Reformed are to be 
found. The only place in which this speech-maker 
speaks the truth, is where he says that the fruit which 
the king collects from peace sufficiently declares what was 
the grand object of all his victories. It was to overcome 
his neighbours, for the sake of being thereby able to 
pursue, without interruption, the grand affair of putting 
down the Reformed. But let us now turn to the flowers 



204 ORDERS GIVEN IN THE KING'S NAME 

that strew the way opened up for our return to th 
church. 

These consist of fifty thousand soldiers, already dis- 
tributed throughout the provinces or about to be so, and 
to whose fury the Reformed are to be subjected until 
they change their religion. But that there may be a 
pretext for savins' that a way strewed with flowers has 
been opened up for them, before driving them to the 
brink of a precipice, and precipitating them into the 
midst of thorns, the intendants, sub-delegates, and magis- 
trates, publish an invitation and command on the part 
of the king, inviting them to return to the church. The 
form of this proclamation will be seen in the harangue 
addressed to the Reformed of Rochelle, and of which 
the following is a copy taken from the edition printed 
by these gentlemen themselves. 

1 Verbal order of Monseigneur de Jeure Millet. 
Lieutenant General for the king in the govern- 
ment of the Aunix country, Rochelle, Brouage, 
Isles of Oleron and Re, ecc. to persons profess- 
ing the pretended Reformed Religion, in the 
city of Rochelle. 

B The king, as common father of his subjects of both 
religions, desires, and fain would procure their salvati 
and re-unite those of the pretended Reformed to the 
one Catholic Church which his majesty and his prede- 
cessors have successively professed, during a course 
of more than twelve hundred years without interrup- 
tion. His majesty neglects nothing that can promote 
an end so full of glory to God and so beneficial to the 
state. He has often seen to vour being exhorted to 
obtain for yourselves due instruction, and he is still 
desirous of furnishing vou with the means of such in- 



TO THE PROTESTANTS OF ROCHELLE. 205 

struction, by the ministry of learned and enlightened 
ecclesiastics, to open your eyes, convince you, and 
disabuse you of the errors into which your fathers be- 
fore you were led by the cabals of pride and selfishness, 
when they renounced the faith of their ancestors, and 
separated themselves from the true and only church. 
These are the last means of that kind which his majesty 
proposes to you by my mouth for your salvation, and 
both as a father and as a master, he enjoins you to 
listen to those who are set over you for your instruc- 
tion, to explain those things which are obscure, and re- 
quire delicacy of treatment, and nourish your errors, 
and this by means of conferences to be conducted 
calmly and without altercation, both this week and the 
week following, in the town hall of this city, which will 
be opened to all sorts of hearers ; that if you resist this 
proposal and this command, and if obstinacy shall shut 
your heart to the Holy Spirit, and to the admonition 
made to you by your sovereign, to profit by the care 
he bestows on your salvation, and by his endeavours to 
re-unite you to the fold of the Church Catholic, Apos- 
tolic, and Roman, then his said majesty's conscience 
will be discharged towards God, when his divine jus- 
tice shall with divers pains and calamities, punish in this 
world the hardening of your hearts/ 

The same thing has been done in Beam, at Mon- 
tauban, at Bergerac, at Sainte Foy, at Bordeaux, at 
Xaintes, and generally throughout all Guyenne, Poitou, 
and Xaintonge, at Castres and in several places more 
whose names have not yet reached us, and it is about 
to be done everywhere. We must not attempt to pic- 
ture here all the cruelties practised by the dragoons, by 
orders from their commandants and hence by orders 
from the court, for it mav readilv be believed that no 



206 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE COURT. 

intendant, judge, or army officers would be insolent 
enough thus to treat the subjects of his king, without 
a precise order to that effect. Something of the manner 
in which they conduct themselves may be learned from 
an account of what took place at Montauban, which has 
been received from that very quarter, and has been 
attested by persons who were more than eye witnesses. 



No. III. 
A SUMMARY ACCOUNT 

OF THE 

UNHEARD-OF ACTS OF VIOLENCE AND CRUELTY 

COMMITTED AT MONTAUBAX, 

AND WHICH CONTINUE TO BE COMMITTED INT OTHER TOWNS A\L 

PLACES, AGAINST THE PROTESTANTS OF FRANCE, TO FORCE 

THEM TO ABJURE THEIR RELIGION. 



On Saturday, the 18th of August, 1685, the intendant 
of Upper Guyenne residing at Montauban, having sent 
for the leading Protestants of that city, represented to 
them that they could not fail to know that the king 
desired that all his subjects should become Roman 
Catholics, for which reason he exhorted them, for his 
part, to conform to that religion, and enjoined them to 
hold a meeting and deliberate thereupon. Some pre- 
sent then answered for all, that there was no need of 
meeting, as every man ought to examine for himself, 
and give a reason for his faith. The day following, 
being the 19th, the intendant enjoined them anew to 
meet at the consular house, where they should be left 
undisturbed from noon to six o'clock ; they met accor- 
dingly, and unanimously resolved that they would live 
and die in their religion. Several of those present 
being deputed to carry this declaration to the intendant, 



208 CONSTANCY DISPLAYED AT MONTAUBAN. 

their spokesman began as follows : f My Lord, we know 
that we are threatened with great violence/ . . . ' Stop,' 
said the intendant, * no violence.' The Protestant con- 
tinued as he had begun ; ' whatever violence we may 
have to suffer.' .... But the intendant interrupting 
him anew, said, ' I command you to abstain from such 
language.' The speaker therefore confined himself to a 
few words, stating that it had been resolved that they 
would remain firm in their attachment to the reformed 
religion. On the day following, being the 20th, the 
battalion of la Fere, composed of twenty companies, 
entered the city, and continued to be followed by other 
troops. These poor people believing that there was a 
settled design to ruin them, had already taken certain 
measures to assist in meeting this trial. Several purses 
had been made up by subscription for the relief of those 
who, it was expected, would be most oppressed, and 
they had resolved to have all things in common. Now, 
they were treated as follows. 

In execution of the designs projected against them, 
the troops were quartered in a certain district of the 
city, but sentries were placed to prevent communication 
from one district to another, and the city gates were also 
guarded, so as to prevent all escape. The billets being 
delivered, the horse and foot began to commit all kinds 
of hostile acts and cruelties, such as the Devil only is 
capable of suggesting to barbarous and reprobate souls. 
Furniture was broken, mirrors smashed, wine, corn, and 
other necessary provisions brought out and wasted. 
What furniture the soldiers did not break, such as bed 
hangings, linens, silver plate, and such like, were taken 
to the market place, where the Jesuits bought them 
from the soldiers, and told the Roman Catholics to do 
the same. The very houses of those who shewed par- 



INHUMAN CRUELTIES COMMITTED THERE. 209 

ticular firmness, were sold; and, altogether, it was 
computed that in four or five days, the losses of the 
reformed of that city amounted to above a million. 
Some soldiers asked for as much as three hundred 
crowns to enjoy themselves with, and several Protest- 
ants gave as much as ten pistoles for the same purpose. 
Meanwhile, the personal outrages they committed were 
horrible. To detail them all would be found impos- 
sible, and we can state only what we have been able to 
learn. Four soldiers carried a woman to a church, but 
as she continually cried out that she would not abjure 
her religion, they left her at the door, after violently 
illtreating her. A tailor, called le Bearnois, was bound 
and dragged to a guard-house, where he was beaten all 
night by the soldiers, but notwithstanding this violence, 
remained constant. The troopers billeted on M. So- 
lignac, a very wealthy merchant, took their horses into 
a large room, containing ten thousand livres worth of 
furniture. The master of the house was then obliged to 
turn the spit, and while he was doing so, fuel was 
heaped on the fire so unmercifully, that his arm was 
half burnt by the heat. A man passing through Mon- 
tauban, saw one of the poor inhabitants beaten with 
sticks, to force him to go to mass ; the poor martyr 
calling out that he never could endure doing that, and 
beseeching them rather to kill him. The barons de 
Caussade and de la Motte were sent off to Cahors, as it 
was feared that their constancy and piety might give 
confidence to the people. M. d'AUiez, one of the chief 
gentils -homines of Montauban, though arrived at a vene- 
rable old age, was so maltreated, that it is thought he 
will die in consequence. M. de Garisson, another of 
the most considerable persons in the city, and an inti- 
mate friend of the intendant, went and threw himself at 



210 INHUMAN ACTS COMMITTED 

the latter's feet, imploring his protection, and conjuring 
him to deliver him from the hands of the soldiers, so 
that his conscience might be at rest, telling him too, 
that he might take all his property, worth about a mil- 
lion, in return for the favour he craved. The intendant, 
far from being shaken, ordered his friend to be treated 
worse than others, and dragged away. The means 
most generally employed in tormenting this poor people, 
and which hell only could have invented, is for several 
of the strongest soldiers, or troopers, to seize a man and 
keep him moving day and night in a room, tickling him 
incessantly, and bandying him from one to the other, 
without the smallest respite, and giving him neither 
meat, nor drink, nor sleep, for three days and nights 
together. On the poor man becoming quite exhausted, 
they would throw him on a bed, and there continue to 
tickle and torment him ; after which they would walk 
him about, still tickling or switching him with rods to 
keep him awake. "When one party became tired, ano- 
ther commenced afresh. By this infernal means, em- 
ployed in Beam and elsewhere, several persons lost 
their senses, and others have become half idiots. Such 
as had no other resource, have abandoned their pro- 
perty, their wives, children, and aged relations to the 
mercy of these barbarous and ferocious troops. 

The same acts of inhuman violence have been com- 
mitted at Negreplise, a town near Montauban. There 
the soldiers committed the most inconceivable out- 
rages. Isaac Favin, a burgess, was hung up by the 
arm-pits, and tormented with pincers for a whole night, 
his constancy remaining unshaken. The wife of a per- 
son called Rouffion, a Carpenter, was dragged to church 
by the soldiers, and died on the steps at the church 
door. A large fire was kindled round a child of about 



IN UPPER AND LOWER GUYENNE. 211 

ten years of age, who cried continually, ' My God, help 
me/ and when they saw him make up his mind to die, 
and on the point of being burnt, he was withdrawn. 

The towns of Caussade, Real Ville, St. Anthonin and 
others, in Upper Guyenne, have suffered the same 
treatment, and the same has been the lot of JBergerac 
and several other towns of Lower Guyenne. The 
troops were then sent to Castres, to commit the same 
barbarities there, and no doubt they will thus go on, 
from town to town, unless it please God to have com- 
passion on his people. It may easily be believed that 
this horrible persecution, combined with the artifices 
employed to disguise the Church of Rome, and to per- 
suade Protestants that they will be allowed to serve God 
as before, has made many weak persons give way, or 
leads them to give the lie with their mouth to their own 
hearts, in the hope of returning as soon as an occasion 
shall occur. They would even have those who by such 
diabolical methods have been compelled to blaspheme 
and abjure their religion, themselves to be the perse- 
cutors and executioners of their wives and children, for 
they are told that if within three days they do not oblige 
them to follow their example, that will be effected by 
overwhelming them with soldiers. Who, after that, 
can doubt that these wretched troops are the emissaries 
of hell, now putting forth its last efforts ? We are 
assured that the clergy have resolved on the destruction 
of the Protestants of France by the same methods that 
are now employed, and that previous to their dissolu- 
tion, they informed the king that a seizure ought to be 
made of all children of fourteen years and under ; that 
these would comprise the half at least of the population 
attached to the reformed religion ; that the troops would 
oblige almost all the remainder to change ; that as for 



91 



SPIRIT OF THE PAPAL CLERGY. 



those who might resist, their property should be 
taken from them, and given to such of their rela- 
tions as shall have abjured their religion, and that 
should any remain after that, they could form only 
a handful, who might easily be chased out of the 
kingdom, by allowing the Roman Catholics to hunt 
them down. The various measures craved by the 
assembly of the clergy- from the king, for complerir.r 
the destruction of the Protestants, sufficiently indicated 
what sort of spirit animated these gentlemen ; and at 
this day bishops may be seen, who, putting themselves 
at the head of dragoons, or by way of preparation 
beforehand for their arrival, proclaim to these poor 
people that they must abjure their religion, otherwise 
they will be abandoned to the fury of these ferocious 
beasts. One may judge now whether the spirit of Gc i 
or that of the Devil, presided at the late meetinr 
these gentlemen, and whether the Church of Rome 
bears the character of the true church, or of an anti- 
christian church. O great God ! who from thy holy 
throne beholdest all the outrages inflicted on thy people, 
hasten thou to our relief. Great God, whose compas- 
sions are infinite, suffer thyself to be moved at our ex- 
treme desolation. Though men are insensible to our 
griefs, though they are deaf to our cries, and groans, and 
supplications, let thy compassions be moved in our 
favour. Great God ! in whose cause we endure so 
many tribulations, and who knowest our innocence, our 
weakness, the fun* of our enemies, and the small help 
we find in the world, if thou pity us not, we perish ! 
Thou it is who art our rock, our God, our Father, am 
deliverer. We put our whole confidence on thee alcr.T 
let us never be put to confusion, for in thee do we hope. 
Hasten Lord to our help, who art our deliverance. 



INHUMAN* CRUELTIES AT XAINTES. 213 

(What follows is by the Author of the Reflections, xe.j 
The foregoing statement gives a part, but only a 
part, of the furious doings of the soldiery. It is a 
positive fact that red hot irons have been applied to the 
hands and feet of men, and to the breasts of women. 
At Xaintes, women and girls have been suspended 
naked, by the feet and armpits, and exposed to the 
public gaze ; the cruellest possible punishment to persons 
of that sex, as it attacks the sense of shame of which 
they are so exquisitely susceptible. Mothers with 
sucking infants have been bound to posts, their babes 
have been kept for days together languishing for the 
breast, and have been allowed to swoon away, from 
hunger, and thirst, and crying, within sight of their 
mothers, thus to work on their feelings by telling them 
that they should not be allowed to give their children 
suck until they had abjured, or promised formally to 
abjure their religion. Children of four and five years 
of age have been left to die of hunger, and when 
ready to breathe their last have been taken before 
their parents, these being told that unless they became 
converts, their Little ones would be left to perish. 
Some have been bound close to a fire and scorched ; 
others have been outrageously beaten, dragged along 
the streets, and tormented night and day. Indeed the 
most usual method is to give their wictims no repose. 
Relays of soldiers are employed night and day, in 
dragging about, beating, and tossing in blankets, poor 
wretches, allowing them no respite. Should anv hold 
out and surmount the rage of the dragoons, these 2:0 
to their commandant, and tell him they know not 
what more they can do ; whereupon he tells them with 
the tone of a barbarian, to return to their work, and 
do something" worse still ; thev must change or I shall 



214 UNPRECEDENTED SEVERITY 

burst. Such are the paths strewed with flowers now 
opened up to the Calvinists, to be a way for their return 
to the Church. 

But it will be said,— all have not suffered these 
horrible torments. I admit all have not so suffered. 
Horror at the thought of such inflictions has so ap- 
palled these poor creatures that they give way at the 
very idea of them. This is a weakness of which we 
are ashamed, and from which we trust that God will 
deliver them, but we ought to remember in excuse, 
that all the persecutions and violent treatment ever 
practised on account of religion, never amounted to 
anything like this. The faithful in past ages have been 
burnt alive, yet how few fell into the hands of the 
executioner, compared with those who escaped ? Here 
however, a whole numerous population is in a moment 
overwhelmed by a prodigious army of executioners, 
and not one escapes. Past ages have had their mas- 
sacres, but these were but the tempest of a day, that 
soon swept past. The massacred were soon put out 
of torment, and they who fled were soon out of dan- 
ger ; but here there is no room for escape. War is the 
most frightful of all things. Every house is attacked 
by an armed force; insolent soldiers break, tumble 
about and burn the furniture, — swear like devils, — beat 
people and commit all sorts of violence, — divert them- 
selves with inventing new kinds of punishment, — will not 
allow themselves to be softened either by money or good 
cheer, — foam like enraged lions, — present death at every 
moment, and what is worse than all, put people out of 
their senses, and drive them to despair by the diaboli- 
cal methods which we find employed in the account 
transmitted from Montauban, a fact attested by an in- 
finity of witnesses. 



OF THE PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE. 215 

This persecution possesses, still farther, a character 
which, without exaggeration, makes it figure in history 
as much more cruel than any of those suffered by the 
church under the Neros, the Deciuses, the Maximins, 
and theDiocletians. This consists in those cruel orders 
in council, prohibiting people from leaving the kingdom, 
under pain of confiscation of goods, being sent to the 
galleys, and being flogged and confined in prison for 
life. The sea-ports are guarded as if it were parricides 
and poisoners that were to be arrested and punished for 
their crimes. The prisons of the sea-ports are full of 
these poor fugitives, women and girls as well as men, 
who are condemned to the severest punishments for 
having attempted to escape from the fury of persecution. 
It is this which has no example. This w 7 ill no where be 
found in the list of the cruelties of the Duke of Alba. 
He destroyed people by massacres and assassinations, 
yet he at least gave them leave to withdraw themselves 
from his cruelties. It is this which neither Nero nor 
Diocletian did, for never did they prohibit Christians 
from banishing themselves from their beloved mother 
country. In the late persecution in Hungary, all that 
was required of Protestant ministers was that they 
should either leave the country, or give up the pastoral 
superintendance of their flocks ; and it was only because 
they would not submit to such conditions, that the 
punishments inflicted on them were so terrible in point 
both of duration and intensity. 

Even that persecution in Hungary, odious as it has 
made the emperor appear to all Protestants, is nothing 
compared with this. The brunt of the tempest in 
that country has fallen on the pastors, but no armies 
have been let loose on the people at large, to force them 
to change their faith by inflicting on them an infini- 



216 FOLLY OF THE PERSECUTION. 

tude of sufferings. Above all, never has it entered the 
minds of the emperor's council of conscience, to shut up 
the Protestants within the kingdom of Hungary, so that 
they shall either die or change their religion. What a 
condition are those miserable persons reduced to in 
France, who ask as a favour to be allowed to go into 
foreign countries to beg, and who are willing to give 
up their property and all their temporal comforts, to 
live a wretched and languishing existence in some land 
where they may at least die in their own religion ? Is it 
not true that the monsters who put such things into 
the king's head, refine upon all other persecutions 
ancient and modern ? 

But, in the end, they are compensated for all they 
have done, by success. They make whole provinces 
change in eight or ten days, and in three months there 
will not be ten families in France professing the Re- 
formed religion. And for such a result is it not well 
worth while to practise some severities ? It must be ad- 
mitted that these ferocious brutes are as blind as they 
are cruel; for what do they gain but men's bodies, 
their signatures, their mere words ? Do they imagine 
it possible to change mens opinions by violence ? Why, 
it is the very way to confirm Protestants in their opinion 
that Popery is an antichristian religion. How can they 
fail to think so, when they see it armed like the beast 
and like the dragon of the book of Revelations ? Can 
it ever enter any one's head that the true religion can 
borrow arms from hell ? These people shut up the 
wolves into the fold without depriving them of their 
paws or their teeth. Thus the Reformed go into the 
church of Rome with all their own opinions, and ex- 
ceedingly confirmed in those opinions by new proofs 
that the spirit of Popery is of the devil. They will 



CASE OF THE DONATISTS. 217 

communicate their thoughts to many others; these 
sickly parts, as they are called, will infect others ; and 
God, to all appearance, is thus preparing the ruin of the 
reign of antichrist. God who never does any thing 
without there "being a reason for it, would never have 
permitted a persecution, so singular in its operation, 
circumstances, and consequences, had he not some such 
end as this in view. 

The following circumstance makes our persecutors 
hopeful that their violent courses will not fail to be of 
advantage to their church. It is that the Donatists 
were brought back to the church by dint of persecution, 
and that St. Augustine, in various parts of his writings, 
asserts that, after their return, they gave thanks for 
having been compelled to give up their schism, and 
blessed God that they had been forcibly compelled to 
make themselves acquainted with the catholic church 
which had been pictured to them in terrible colours. 
Such is the arena on which the writers of this age ex- 
ercise their wits — it is the text of Arnauld, of Ferrand, 
and all the other flatterers of our enemies. They fail 
not to present to the king the example of those Chris- 
tian emperors who suppressed the Donatist party by the 
severity of their decrees. They promise him like success, 
and would, moreover, persuade him that his policy with 
regard to us, is just and innocent ; but would these 
blind folks allow themselves to be enlightened, quite 
enough might be told them to shew how far the parallel 
is from being exact. 

First of all, it may be remarked that the Donatists by 
their violence had made themselves obnoxious to the 
legal severity of the emperors. I need not repeat all 
the furious doings of the Circumcellions against the 
catholics ; they have been often enough brought for- 

L 



218 CASE OF THE DONATISTS DIFFERENT 

ward ; they are well known, they ought to be known, 
and our persecutors do not denv them. Bat, says M. 
Ferrand. all the rigorous edicts which the emperors 
issued against the Donatists, were not rendered in sight 
of the Circumcellions and to repress their fun- ; the de- 
sign of many of these edicts was the conversion of 
simple Donatists. True, yet the furious doings of the 
Circumcellions gave occasion to the first rigorous edicts, 
and this severity being found not only to put down the 
violence of the Donatists, but to make them side with 
the church, this success led to their being continued. 
And it was that success which deceived St. Augustine, 
and led him to relinquish the opinion he had formerlv 
entertained, that heretics ought not to be compelled to 
return to the church by penalties. Here then, the 
parallel is already proved not to hold ; — the Donatists 
were the original cause of the evil that befel them^ but 
we have done nothing to bring this evil upon us. 

This parallel, however, has another and a still greater 
defect. There is no comparison between the severities 
with which the Donatists were assailed, and the cruel- 
ties with which we are treated. M, Ferrand has taken 
great pains to form a register of all the imperial laws 
against the Donatists ; he finds some which condemn 
them to pay fines of fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten. 
and five pounds of gold, according to the fortunes and 
quality of the persons fined, with threats of the con- 
fiscation of goods in case of obstinacy ; but he does 
not shew that these threats were ever executed. He 
finds laws which condemn bishops, priests and other 
ministers to banishment, but does he find that the em- 
peror Honorius prohibited the Donatists, under pain 
of punishments worse than death, from leaving the 
country to avoid persecution ? Has he made the dis- 



FROM THAT OF THE FRENCH REFORMED. 219 

covery that there were any laws for shutting up the 
inhabitants in their own towns and houses, for the pur- 
pose of effecting their destruction by all sorts of punish- 
ments, unless they changed their religion ? Does he 
read anywhere of armed missionaries being sent against 
the Donatists, or of their being given up to the fury of 
soldiers, of orders being given them to torture them to 
death or conversion, or that they were deprived of their 
reason by tickling them and tossing them in blankets ? 
Does he read of red hot irons being applied to their 
feet, their hands, their cheeks, and their nipples ? 
Does he find that the soldiers were ordered to use men 
as if they were no better than tennis-balls, until they 
abandoned their schism ? Does he learn from St. Au- 
gustine that women and girls were stript naked to be 
made a public spectacle of, or that the wives of the 
Donatists were given up to violation as has been done 
in Bearn ? This then, would be to compare things as 
different as heaven and earth. 

Further, as regards the great success that attended 
the severities against the Donatists, our persecutors 
must not expect to see anything like it, unless we shall 
be abandoned by the spirit of God. It is not easy to 
account for its having been otherwise with the Dona- 
tists. They were separated from the church only by 
mere wrong-headnesses. There was nothing in the 
Catholic Church to scandalise them. Above all, there 
was nothing in it that could in the least revolt their 
senses. Now, we know that sensible things make the 
deepest impression on the minds of the multitude. A 
hundred years before, their ancestors had formed a 
secession about the election of a bishop, which to them 
had appeared to be done contrary to law. Even at the 
time, accordingly, it was an insignificant ground of 

L 2 



220 TWO RELIGIONS IX THAT OF ROME. 

separation, and to men who viewed it through the dis- 
tance of a hundred years, it must have dwindled down 
to nothing. Moreover, when brought back to the 
church by the dread of losing their property, they saw 
nothing there at all different from what they had been 
accustomed to see among themselves. They saw the 
same hierarchy, the same sacraments, the same acts of 
worship, the same ceremonies, the same doctrines ; in 
one word, all was the same. Hence there was nothing 
to prevent their familiarizing themselves with the 
change and opening their eyes to their own wrong- 
he adedness. 

But in our case, people are compelled by violence, 
by the sword, by fire, by the utmost refinement of 
torture, to leave a church where they see neither 
images, nor altars, nor the invocation of saints, nor 
the mass, nor sacrifice, nor vespers, nor matins, nor 
litanies to the saints, nor satisfactions, nor indulgences, 
nor jubilees, nor stations, nor priests with mystic 
dresses, nor popes, nor monks ; a church where they 
are never addressed on the subject of human traditions,, 
or infallibility, or of' the intercession of saints, or of 
particular penitences, or oi the merit oi works, or oi 
purgatory, or of the real presence, or ol the adoration 
of the sacrament, or of masses performed in private 
and without communicants, or of the peril oi spilling 
the cup or the necessity of not giving it to the people. 
In a word, I maintain that Popery is as different from 
true Christianity, as Paganism is different from Chris- 
tianity ; for in the Church oi Rome there are two re- 
ligions,— there is the Christianity which it has kept, and 
there is the Paganism which it has added. 

People, then, are taken from a church in which none 
of these things are seen or spoken oi\ and dragged into 



CASE OF THE ALBIGENSES. 221 

another which is full of images, where creatures are 
prayed to, where relics are worshipped, where the 
highest adoration, called latria, is paid to bread, where 
the body of our Lord Jesus Christ is sacrificed every 
day, where the eucharist is made an idle shew, where 
temples are built in honour of saints, where the people 
are refused the cup, where prayers are made in bar- 
barous latin. Now, granting that in our ideas on all 
these matters we are in the wrong, still I affirm that 
cur people when dragged by force into the Church of 
Rome, never can become as familiar with such worship 
as the Donatists became with the Catholic Church. 
There is a mighty difference between relinquishing un- 
founded prejudices, and prejudices founded at least on 
appearance, and on the essential differences that distin- 
guish one religion from another. 

The success which France, in former times, obtained 
in the extinction of the Albigenses, is another circum- 
stance which leads our persecutors to flatter themselves 
that they may succeed in smothering us. But the case 
is very different. An infinite number of the Albigenses 
was slaughtered, and others were dispersed, so that 
they earned their doctrines to the extremity of the 
world. The few that remained were easily confounded 
with the crowd. But even that did not effect the utter 
destruction of the seeds of truth, for no sooner was the 
pure Gospel preached in the provinces of the south of 
France, than the greater part of the inhabitants re- 
turned to the religion of which their forefathers had 
been deprived, and no other natural reason can be 
given for the Reformation having made so much more 
progress in these provinces, than in other parts of 
France. 

But the grand reason for maintaining that persecu- 



222 RUINOUS RESULTS OF THE PERSECUTION 

tors will not have the same success as in the times of 
the Albigenses, is, that we no longer live in the same 
period. The empire of antichrist and of anti-chris- 
tianity, was then in all its vigour. As the power of the 
Devil had then a long course to run, he necessarily- 
enjoyed every kind of success ; but it now seems hardly 
doubtful that his reign draws to its close. Many ages 
will not pass away, ere truth shall be seen to re-ascend 
the throne, and this, perhaps, is the last effort of the 
prince of darkness. He throws his last stake, and 
accordingly spares nothing. And who knows but that 
God who could make even the Devil's entering into 
Judas, subserve the ruin of the latter's empire, is not 
now making the inspirations of the same spirit subser- 
vient to the overthrow of the empire of error and ido- 
latry ? The Devil does not always know what he is 
doing, or what consequences are ultimately to flow from 
the persecutions he raises against the church. Did he 
know, he would often act very differently. 

Our persecutors, then, won't have the success they 
expect from their cruelties. But see what they will 
effect. First, they will ruin France, will annihilate 
commerce, will diminish the revenues of the crown, and 
consequently, render it obnoxious to the insults of 
foreign powers. Our people, being excluded from all 
public offices and honours, devoted themselves to trade, 
but each of them now, anxious to escape when he can, 
will retire from business, and will abandon one part of 
his property to save the other. Hence they will take 
all the money they can, and leave only fixed capital. 
The result of persecution is already so sensible, that 
every body knows and feels it. Customs which once 
brought the king several millions, are now in some 



OX THE INTERESTS OF FRANCE. 223 

places not worth as many hundreds of thousands as they 
were before worth millions.* 

Second, the persecution will make France, and already 
makes it, the horror of all foreign, and especially Pro- 
testant countries, and alliances between them and her 
will last only until thev find themselves in a condition to 
run her down. 

Third, when foreign wars do arise, millions, whose 
consciences are now held in cruel bondage, will not fail 
to seek for the means of breaking their chains. 

Fourth, the seeds of civil war are already sown. I 
admit the king has been prosperous, and that beyond 
what could have been imagined. But even from this 
we may conclude that he will not always be so. We 
have no example of a man's prosperity continuing 
throughout a long reign, without belieing itself. He 
will grow old, and the number of malcontents will 
increase from day to day, so that any one of the 
nobility attempting what others have done before, will 
not fail to find people to support and second him. This 
they will do, and with reason, for neither divine nor 
human laws authorise kings to do violence to men's 
consciences. At the utmost, they may banish those who 
displease them, by allowing them to transport their 
goods and families elsewhere. It is lamentable to think 
that there shoidd be wretched flatterers who lull asleep 
the consciences of the great, inspiring them with 
maxims that make men tyrants, persuading them that 
the royal power is a mountain whose top reaches to 
heaven, —that their authority extends to even' thing, and 
is boundless. They shall one day know whether it be 

* For the disastrous effects of this persecution in France, see An- 
quetil, t. 12, p. "288. kc. Two hundred thousand Protestants are 
said to have left the country. — Ed, 



224 JAMES II. OF ENGLAND INTERESTED 

so, when God calls them to give in an account of their 
stewardship. Nothing assuredly can be better fitted to 
drive their subjects to despair, than the treatment ex- 
perienced by the reformed, and God grant that these 
cruelties do not produce the most deplorable effects ! If 
nothing of this kind happen, it must be ascribed to the 
spirit of religion which enjoins us to suffer with patience. 
For it is certain, that if Popery were assailed by like 
methods, neither crowns nor diadems, neither grandeur 
nor guards, could avail in its defence. This may be 
seen from the examples of the Henrys of France, of 
Elizabeth, and of James of England, of the Prince of 
Orange, and so many others who perished, or were 
marked out to perish, by tbe dark assaults of the 
papacy ; and that although the two Henrys of France 
never dreamt of persecuting the Papists, but, on the 
contrary, loaded them with favours : and though Eliza- 
beth and James of England, never compelled their sub- 
jects to go to mass by punishment or by dragoons. 
Thank God we have not so learned Christ, and such is 
not our Christianity. Potius patiare scelus quam facias, 
such is the motto of the Christian with us. 

France will not be the only country to suffer from 
the sad results of our persecution. England and her 
king may feel their consequences. At this moment all 
the English who love the reformed religion, shudder 
with alarm. They see in the proceedings of the court 
of France, what the spirit of the papacy is, and although 
they have no cause as yet to complain of their king, yet 
they never can be cured of the dread they entertain of 
being one day treated as the reformed are in France. 
Thus this persecution will nourish a spirit of mutual dis- 
trust between them and their prince. He will regard 
them as concealed enemies, who obey him only by con- 



IN ARRESTING THE PERSECUTION. 225 

straint, and they will regard him as an enemy who is 
only watching for a favourable opportunity of destroying 
them. I would fain believe that neither idea is right, 
but the truth is, the morbid alarms thus originated, 
will prove incurable. It is this that leads me to say, 
that could the King of England understand his own 
interests, Roman Catholic as he is, he would act as a 
mediator, and arrest the course of this persecution. He 
would say, ' I am entitled to exhort you to do what I 
do myself, and as I, though a Roman Catholic like you, 
leave religious affairs in the state in which I found them, 
I consider that you ought to do so on your side also. 
He has the power to make himself listened to, and I 
may even say, to make himself obeyed, for he has only 
to adopt this course, and he will be abetted by all 
Europe. Roman Catholics and Protestants will, from 
different prudential reasons, unite in the same cause. 
Thus would the King of England make more sure of his 
crown than he has done by the success of his arms 
against the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle. 
Thus might he restore a spirit of mutual confidence 
throughout his dominions ; thus might he make himself 
adored by all his subjects; thus would he confirm his 
alliances with all Protestant states, and particularly with 
the United Provinces. Finally, he would thus draw 
closer the natural ties that connect him with that 
incomparable prince, the Prince of Orange. For that 
prince who now raises the hopes of the Protestants of 
England, and sustains their loyalty to their king, would 
be enabled without any constraint on his feelings to act 
for the interests of his father-in-law ; having no reason 
to fear that he may ruin the Protestant religion to which 
he is so much attached, while he maintains the royal dig- 
nity in the person of him whonow possesses it in England. 

l 5 



226 THE SUCCESS OF THE PERSECUTION 

It may seem quite too late to offer this advice, for 
that remedies are useless, now that the mischief is done. 
But the whole mischief is far from being accomplished. 
True — in a few months, signatures may have been ob- 
tained from all that remains of the Reformed in France. 
But it is in that condition that they need the aid, and 
implore the compassion of ingenuous persons ; their 
consciences are held bound in the darkest prisons, they are 
racked and tormented ; they stretch forth their hands, 
they send forth cries, mute, indeed, yet lamentable and 
piercing. They call for liberty, and they regard as 
liberators such at would at least obtain for them liberty 
to live in France, as Turks and Jews live in Rome ; so 
that, should the Protestant princes feel themselves some- 
what ashamed at their not opposing this evil from its 
commencement, they at least may, and should, make an 
effort to diminish it. 

Before having done with the advantages they expect 
to derive from this persecution, I shall admit that they 
will augment their numbers by the addition of certain 
libertine, worldly, greedy, and ambitious persons, who 
have no God but their own interest ; but they will thus 
but nourish in their bosom a multitude of secret enemies 
who will at length devour their entrails. Farther, it 
will not be with the Calvinists as with the Donatists, that 
they will easily familiarise themselves with the Roman 
Catholic church after having entered it ; and in proof 
of this, I desire no better testimony than that of those 
gentlemen themselves. Far from congratulating them- 
selves, as St. Augustine did on the conversion of the 
Donatists, that though they began in the flesh, they 
ended in the spirit, they admit that their new converts 
do not go to mass, and even petition the king to com- 
pel them by law to frequent their mysteries. In fact, 



DANGEROUS TO THE PAPACY ITSELF. 227 

it is notorious, that the poor creatures whom Marillac 
converted by dint of blows, some four or five years ago, 
do not attend mass, and say they won't attend it. 
Yet these first converts were but the dregs of our peo- 
ple, being the weak and the ignorant. At that time 
violent measures had not been carried so far as now, so 
that those who had most honesty and fortitude held out. 
Now these, as well as others, have given way, but not 
without a heart fuller of aversion than ever, for a re- 
ligion that can thus horribly overwhelm them. Thus 
popery will make hypocrites of all the worldly whom it 
takes from us, and implacable enemies of all the in- 
genuous. God knows what the event will be. It is 
enough that we make our remarks on the conduct of 
the clergy. I propose to make some on a late writing 
of theirs, entitled — ' The Doctrine of the Church con- 
tained in our profession of the faith, and in the Decrees 
of the Council of Trent, opposed to the false and insulting 
calumnies to be found in the writings of the Pretended 
Reformed 5 — a publication intended as the signal for battle, 
and to open the path strewn with flowers, of which we 
have spoken.* Its object is to furnish a pretext to all 

* Stung by the ill success of their conferences, and by the over- 
whelming conclusiveness of the controversial writings of the French 
Reformed, the Papal clergy of France had recourse to two acts, the 
one remarkable for disingenuousness and cunning, the other for those 
qualities combined with the grossest practical injustice. By the firstg 
they strove to represent all the worst papal corruptions of Christian 
doctrine and practice, as either falsely imputed to their church, or as 
mere accessories, which no Roman Catholic was bound to believe or 
practise, and to which the Church of Rome demanded no man's adhe- 
sion as necessary to salvation. This was Bossnet's policy as dis- 
played in his short, but famous ' Exposition,' a work in which a Pro- 
testant is amazed to find hardly any allusion to the worst papal errors. 
By the second, the reformed were charged before the king, with cir- 
culating in their books and sermons, 'calamities, insults, and false- 



228 POLICY OF THE PAPAL CLERGY IN 1685. 

the cowards who would fain persuade themselves that 
the religion of Rome is not so bad, after all, as some 
would make it, and this is what some are saying even 
now. It would require volumes to say all that might 
be said on this confession, and these volumes are already 
to be found. I refer to such as have been written in 
opposition to the Roman Catholic exposition of the 
Bishop of Condom. All that is requisite, will be to 
note in passing, the sources from which the matter is 
drawn, to run over those traits of the papacy, which have 
been studiously disguised, and to bring again to light 
those ugly features which its abettors would fain conceal 
and repudiate. 

hoods against the doctrine of the church.' In their pleinte to the 
king, they placed on one side in Latin and French, what they main- 
tained to be the true doctrine of their church ; and on the other, that 
which they alleged to be the misrepresentations and calumnies of the 
reformed, with foot notes, giving the protestant authorities for the 
opinions alleged. It is remarkable, and may be regarded as a proof 
that the French Protestant writers were remarkably candid in their 
statements, and guarded in their language, that many of the alleged 
Protestant authorities are from the writings of foreign Protestant 
divines, including those of the Church of England. The admirable 
manner in which this spiteful and ridiculous attack made on Louis's 
best subjects, was answered, no doubt made the persecution wax 
fiercer than ever. Vide. c Plainte de V Assemblee Generale du Clerge 
de France, contre les Calomnies, Injures, Faussetez que les Pretendus 
Reformez ont repandues, et repandent, tous les jours, dans leurs 
Livres et dans leurs Preches, Contre la Doctrine de VEglise, Portee au 
Roy par le Clerge en Corps, Le XIV. Juillet, MDLXXXV, a Paris 
1685, Avec Privilege de sa Majeste. — Ed/ 



No. IV. 
SUFFERINGS OF THE REFORMED 

IN THE 

SOUTH OF FRANCE, 

AS DESCRIBED IN A LETTER FROM BORDEAUX.* 



Sir, 
All you have been told of the persecutions which have 
been, and still are, inflicted on persons of our religion 
in Beam, Guyenne, and Perigord, is but too true, and ? 
far from being exaggerated, forms but a small part of 
what might be told. Yet I cannot complain of your 
finding it difficult to give credence to all that has been 
told you, for on such occasions a man can hardly believe 
his own eyes. But we ought not to be surprised when 
we find the church afflicted in this world. Here she is 
a stranger as was Jesus Christ, her head, — and, like 
him, she must travel to heaven, which is her country, 
by the path of sorrow and of suffering. We ought not 
to wonder when we behold her enduring cruel persecu- 

* This interesting letter, the printer of the Reflexions, &c. apolo- 
gises for adding without the knowledge of the author of that work, 
with whom probably the state of the times prevented him from com- 
municating. It had appeared separately. — Ed. 



230 LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 

turns, for all ages have seen her exposed tc rials, 

and they are necessary to the purification of her faith, 
and destined to furnish matter for her glory. Finally, 
nothing need seem strange in so many who used to pro- 
fess the gospel in its purity, abandoning it in so rude 
a trial, for all men have not faith, and why should we 
expect that those who follow Christ only becar 
find it their interest to do so, and for the bread he gives 
them, will continue to follow him when he sees fit to 
call on them to bear his cross and deny themselves ? Bur 
what seems to me incomprehensible, is, that our ene- 
mies should employ the means for destroying us which 
they have employed, and that their success should have 
been so prodigious, and on the whole, sc deplorable. I 
now proceed to relate to you in a :V" 
come to my knowledge. 

All the thundering declarations, and all the over- 
timing orders in council, petitioned - :: -a: :;~ained 
against us, without any intermission, and then most 
rigorously executed, were no longer found capable of 
shaking the resolution of almost any rue, Tite inter- 
diction of our public religious exercises, the demolitior 
of our churches, and the severe prohibitions against on: 
meeting, even by twos and threes., for secret prayer. 
only stimulated the zeal of the greater nun: uug 

them to address God more fervently in then closets, 
and to ponder his word with greater care. And neither 
did the straits to which we were re - oy being de- 
prived of our offices and empleyments, and ah ether 
mean- of gaining a livelihood., ana. also, by the insup- 
portable charges laid on us. whether as rr'leu :r in 
furnishing supplies to the military who were thrown as 

* The common tax ox Assessment imposed at that time in France on 
all classes but the clergy and nc trility.— -En. 



LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 231 

much as possible on us for support, nor the frightful 
penalties following upon criminal informations raised on 
the idlest and most iniquitous pretexts, any longer wear 
out a patience which had now become proof against all 
such calamities. So much was this the case, that the 
project of compelling us to forsake the truth was about 
to prove a complete failure, had no instruments been 
employed worse than these, terrible as they were. But 
our enemies were too ingenious, and had our ruin too 
much at heart, not to discover at length such as might 
prove as effectual and powerful as they could desire. 
They called to mind the effects produced some years be- 
fore in Poitou, Aunix, and Saintonge, by the novel kind 
of persecution contrived by the intendants of those dis- 
tricts, and found no difficulty in recurring to them as an 
infallible means of success. 

We have no reason to suppose, Sir, that such violent 
methods would ever be employed for our conversion. 
We had always thought that none but the Dennuieux 
and the Marillacs could be found capable of such pro- 
jects, nor could we suppose it possible that army 
generals who account it a disgrace to attack and cam- 
by assault a little town, could stoop to besieging in 
their own houses, old men, and women, and children ; 
and that soldiers who regard themselves as ennobled by 
their swords, could consent to act the part of hangmen 
by torturing unoffending people, and subjecting them 
to all manner of punishments. And the less could we 
have expected this as when such things were done be- 
fore, we were told that they were disapproved by the 
privy council, and as, in point of fact, all sorts of rea- 
sons, of humanity, piety, and self-interest, ought to have 
made such barbarous proceedings to be disapproved in 
that quarter. 



232 LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 

It is time, nevertheless, that far from being con- 
demned, this course is now pursued with a keenness 
hitherto unequalled, — two things only being done in 
order to the securing of all the fruits people expected 
to reap from it. The first of these consisted in putting 
us off our guard, and removing all suspicion of what was 
preparing for us, by leaving us still some public exer- 
cises, allowing us to build some places of worship, 
establishing ministers in divers places for the baptism 
of our children, and causing sundry arrets and declara- 
tions to be published, insinuating that we might hope 
for some years longer existence, such, for instance, as 
the declaration ordering ministers to change their church 
every three years. The other was to close the ports of 
the kingdom, so that no one could escape out of it, by 
renewing the ancient prohibitions against emigration, 
with the addition only of much severer penalties. 

Having taken these precautions, it was thought that 
no further measures need be kept, and forthwith the 
arm was raised to inflict the blow which was utterly to 
ruin us. The intendants received orders to inform us, 
that it was the king's desire that no religion but his 
own should be tolerated in the kingdom ; to enjoin us 
to embrace it within a few days, or even within some 
hours ; to threaten every kind of rigour in case of re- 
fusal, and immediately to execute those threats by 
filling our houses with soldiers who were to make us 
their prey, and, not stopping at our utter ruin, practise 
every kind of violence and cruelty they could think of, 
so as to gain their object, cost what it might to our 
perseverance. 

Thus it was, that about four months ago, a com- 
mencement was made of that frightful method of con- 
verting people— a method worthy of its inventors and 



LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 233 

the communion of Rome. Beam was attacked first, as 
being one of the most considerable extremities of the 
kingdom, in order that the infliction, proceeding from 
it into the very heart of the state, might embrace all the 
provinces. M. Foucault, the intendant, goes from 
place to place wherever we are to be found in any num- 
ber ; he enjoins the inhabitants of the Reformed re- 
ligion, under pain of incurring heavy fines, to meet at 
certain places pointed out to them ; he there commands 
all of them, in his majesty's name, to change their 
religion, giving them some days to make up their 
mind, but telling them that he has troops at command 
to compel such as refuse to obey, and this menace being 
followed up by immediate execution, as thunder follows 
lightning, he fills with soldiers the houses of those who 
are steadfastly resolved to live and die faithful to Jesus 
Christ, and commands these insolent and eager troops 
to give them all imaginable bad treatment. 

I will not venture, Sir, to give you a detail of all the 
excesses committed by these brutal and ferocious men 
in execution of their orders. The narrative would be 
tedious and melancholy. It is enough to tell you that 
they have omitted no kind of inhuman treatment and 
have spared no condition of life, or sex, or age. They 
have pulled down houses ; they have broken in pieces 
the most beautiful furniture ; they have slashed and 
beaten venerable old men ; they have pitilessly dragged 
honourable women into churches ; they have bound 
innocent persons as if no better than infamous crimi- 
nals, have hung them up by the heels until almost 
dead, and have applied red hot shovels to their bare 
heads and other parts of their bodies ; they have shut 
them up within four bare walls, and left them there to 
die of hunger and thirst ; and as the constancy with 



234 LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 

which they have borne such torments only exasperated 
their tormentors, these have never ceased until by dint 
of inhuman cruelty they have triumphed over the faith 
and the patience of their wretched victims ; so that of 
the many crowded churches we once had in that pro- 
vince, such as those of Pau, Arthes, Novarre, &c. 
a remnant only has escaped who still hold out against 
these cruelties, or have fled into Spain, Holland, Eng- 
land, or some other country, leaving their families and 
their properties as a prey to their persecutors. 

The result answering to their expectations, without 
loss of time they resolve vigorously to follow up what 
they had gained, and straightway turn their regards 
and their arms towards Montauban. There the inten- 
dant convenes the burgesses, and addresses them in the 
same terms as he had the Reformed of Beam ; the an- 
swer being nearly to the same effect, he orders four 
thousand troops to enter the city, and, as in Beam, 
he quarters them on the Reformed only, with orders 
to do just as they had done in Beam ; and so well did 
these inhuman beings know how to execute this pitiless 
order, that of from fifteen to twenty thousand souls 
composing that large and fine Church, from twenty to 
thirty families only are left, and these are now wander- 
ing in the fields and woods. This rain has been followed 
by that of all the other churches in that neighbourdood, 
such as Realmont, Bourniquel, Negrepelisse, &c. Having 
been subjected to the same severities, these have ex- 
perienced the same fate. 

Yet the fate of the churches in Upper Guyenne has 
not been more lamentable than of those in Lower 
Guyenne and Perigort ; these, too, having been swal- 
lowed up in that frightful deluge. M. de Bouffiers and 
the Intendant, the one taking Agenois, Tonneins, 



LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 235 

Clerac, and the country round, the other, Fleiss, Mon- 
ravel, Genssac, Cartillon, Coutras, Libourne, &c, the 
troops under their orders have laid waste all the places 
they passed through, filling them with mourning and 
despair, and sending terror and dismay before them 
wherever they went. 

In St. Foy, seventeen companies were quartered at 
one time, at Nerac fifteen companies, and in the same 
proportion all round, so that as the whole country 
swarmed with troops inured to pillage and licentious- 
ness, there is not a place in it where they have not left 
deplorable marks of their rage and cruelty ; succeeding 
at last, by dint of torments, in compelling all whom 
they could find of our religion to bow then' necks to 
the yoke of the communion of Rome. 

But as Bergerac had acquired particular celebrity by 
the long trials it had gloriously sustained, and as our 
enemies well perceived of what importance it was for 
the promotion of their purposes to carry it at any cost, 
it was the place which of all they assailed with most 
fury and obstinacy. For three whole years had this 
small town stood out, with admirable patience, against 
a thousand indignities from the military, who ate it up 
to the bones. Besides the continual passing of troops, 
no fewer than eighteen troops of horse took up their 
winter quarters in it, yet the result was the conversion 
of only three poor creatures, and even these were as- 
sisted by the public alms of the church. After this 
there were sent, first, two troops of cavalry to keep a 
look-out among the inhabitants, and, some time after, 
these were followed by thirty companies of infantry. 
M. de Boufflers, the intendant of the province, the 
bishops of Agen and of Perigueux, and some other 
persons of note then went there, and two hundred 



236 LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 

burgesses were summoned to meet them in the town 
hall. These were informed that it was the king's desire 
that they should all go to mass, and that if they would 
not do so of their own accord, it would be necessary to 
compel them; and the unanimous reply being that 
their lives and property were in his majesty's hand, but 
that God alone was the Master of their consciences. 
and that they would suffer anything rather than pi 
traitors to its suggestions, they were told.that they must 
prepare to receive a punishment well worthy of their 
obstinacy and disobedience. A re-inforcement was 
then introduced, consisting of thirty -two companies of 
cavalry and infantry which along with the previous 
thirty -four, were billetted on the Protestants only, with 
orders to spare nothing but to commit even* kind of 
violence at the expense of their hosts, until they should 
succeed in extorting from them a promise to do all that 
was required. These orders being executed as was 
desired by those who had given them, and the wretched 
victims of this military fun- being reduced to a lamen- 
table condition, they were summoned to meet a second 
time in the town hall, where they were urged anew to 
change their religion, and on replying with tears in 
their eyes, and with all possible respect and humility, 
that they could not, fresh severities were threatened, 
and the threat was carried into full effect. Thirty-four 
companies more were sent for, so that altogether they 
amounted to above a hundred ; and on this the men 
composing them, excited by their numbers, and whet- 
ting their passions like wolves let loose on harmless sheep, 
began to tear and devour their victims horribly. Whole 
companies were quartered on single burgesses, and a 
tax of one hundred and fifty livres per day was laid, for 
their subsistence, on people whose entire fortune did not 



LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 237 

amount to ten thousand livres. "When their money was 
exhausted, their furniture was put up to sale, and then 
what had cost sixty livres, might sell for two sols. 
Fathers, mothers, wives and children, were bound and 
tied down with four soldiers at the door, to prevent any 
one from entering" to give them assistance or consola- 
tion. In this state they have been kept two, three, 
four, five, or six days, without food, or drink, or sleep. 
Here a child has been heard to say with a dying voice, 
' Father, Mother, I can endure no more/ There the 
wife exclaims, ' Alas ! my heart fails me,' and far from 
being affected by such sufferings, then- executioners 
have only taken occasion from them to renew then- 
urgency, terrifying their victims with threats accom- 
panied with execrable oaths, calling out, 'dog — b — ! you 
won't convert yourself forsooth ! You won't listen to 
us !' And the ecclesiastics, while witnesses of all these 
cruelties, look on only to gloat upon them, and while 
listening to such infamous language, — language which 
should cover them with confusion, only laugh at it. Thus 
the poor creatures, kept hovering between life and 
death, for when sinking, they have just what food is 
necessary to sustain life, and seeing no other wav of 
escape from this state of unintermitted torture, at length 
give way under the pressure of their sufferings. Flight 
alone has preserved those who have preferred their reli- 
gion to all their possessions, — all else have been com- 
pelled to go to mass. 

The country has been no more protected from these 
miseries than the towns ; noble and burgess have been 
alike exposed to them. Whole companies began to be 
sent into the houses of gentUs-homm.es, and treat them 
with such violence, that there seems no wav of escape 
for a single sold, except such as, like the faithful of old, 



238 LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 

wander about in dens and caves of the earth. Hence I 
assure you, never was there greater consternation than 
what we have been thrown into by the approach of the 
troops, and the arrival of the intendant. The great 
mass of merchants of consideration have taken to flight, 
leaving their houses and goods to their enemies ; though 
there have been cowards also, who had agreed before- 
hand to do all that might be required of them, so as at 
once to escape from the threatened calamity. To con- 
clude, in all quarters you are met by tears, and groans, 
and terror, there not being a single person of our reli- 
gion, whose heart is not surcharged with bitter reflec- 
tions, and whose countenance does not wear the hue of 
death. Assuredly if our enemies do triumph over them, 
that triumph cannot be very lasting. 

I have not so favourable an opinion of our enemies 
as to suppose that they will ever be ashamed of conduct 
so contrary to the spirit of the gospel. To them I 
know that the gospel is no better thai] a fable. I would 
only say that then' doings are making the kingdom a 
desolation, such as apparently it never can recover from, 
and the miseries entailed by which, they will themselves 
at length be compelled to feel. Already commerce is 
well nigh annihilated, and would require little short of a 
miracle to revive it. What Protestant merchants will 
choose in future to have commercial dealings with faith- 
less men who have basely betrayed their religion and 
their conscience, or with the outrageous persecutors of 
the religion they profess,-— men who by then conduct 
have so publicly declared that they are not bound to 
keep faith with those whom they account heretics ? And 
who are they— be they of what religion you please, 
who would trade with a state, exhausted by subsidies, 
persecutions, and a sterility of many years' continuance, 



LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 239 

filled with persons rendered desperate, and which will 
at length be filled infallibly with proscribed persons, and 
be bathed in their blood ? 

The wretched creatures, who after being duped into 
the promise that they never would be asked to change 
their religion, have since been stupified by the severity 
of past, and the dread of future suffering, are in a state 
of amazement which prevents their having any sober 
consciousness of their fall. But as soon as they shall 
have come to themselves again, and see that they 
cannot embrace the communion of Rome without abso- 
lutely renouncing the holy religion they professed ; as 
soon as they reflect on the unhappy change they 
have made, then their consciences will re-awaken and 
reproach them for their cowardice ; by torturing them 
with remorse, it will subject them to sufferings akin to 
those which the damned endure in hell, so as to be com- 
pelled to seek deliverance and repose in a steady profes- 
sion of the truth which they have betrayed. Then their 
enemies will dread their recanting, and will endeavour 
to keep them in the abyss into which they have been 
thrown by the dread of new sufferings, but as these will 
amount to nothing compared with those inflicted by the 
stings of conscience, the only remaining resource will be 
to drag them to capital punishment, or to try to make 
away with them at once by general massacres, such as 
so many devoted Papists have long been sighing for. 
Pray to God, Sir, to have compassion on these poor crea- 
tures, to turn the heart of our august monarch towards 
us, to convert those who think they do him sendee by 
putting us to death. Pray to God that he may cry to 
them as he did of old to St. Paul, — " Saul, Saul, why 
persecutest thou me ?" Pray that all who like St. Peter 



240 LETTER FROM BORDEAUX. 

have denied him, may, under a sense of true repentance, 
go out as he did, and weep bitterly. 

Be it known, that since the above was written, the 
same violent course has been, and still continues to be. 
pursued throughout Poitou, Saintonge, Lower Langue- 
doc, and Dauphiny ; and that the preparatory summons 
have been issued throughout Normandy. Thus the 
case is general.* 

* This letter has no date, but by referring to the concluding chap- 
ters of De Rulhiere, one may easily perceive about what time it was 
written. — Ed. 




No. V. 

REFLECTIONS 

ON THE CRUEL PERSECUTIONS SUFFERED 

BY THE 

REFORMED CHURCH OF FRANCE. 

SECOND PART : 

CONTAINING SEVERAL CONSIDERABLE FACTS RELATING TO THE LATE 

EDICT FOR THE ANNIHILATION OF THE EDICTS OF NANTES 

AND NIMES, WITH SOME REMARKS; AND FOUR 

LETTERS ADDRESSED TO PERSONS WHO 

HAVE BEEN FORCED TO ENTER 

INTO THE COMMUNION 



OF ROME. 






THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. 

Since the first appearance of this treatise in French, the 
affairs of the Reformed of France have so changed their 
aspect, that these are reduced to the last extremity. 
And though all the calamities that overwhelm them have 
taken them by surprise, still they did not yet expect 
the final death-blow now aimed at them, — I mean the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. On this account we 

M 



242 REFLECTIONS, &C. SECOND PART. 

have thought proper to publish this terrible ordinance, 
which was promulgated a short time ago, and after 
enriching it with some remarks which have fallen into 
our hands, to add in this edition, divers accounts of the 
cruelties practised on our brethren, to the end that all 
the world may see how far the clergy of Rome can 
work on the minds of sovereigns, by infusing prejudices 
into them. And that the work may be quite complete, 
we have resolved to add at the close, three letters 
written by pastors in France, to those wretched persons 
who have abjured their creed, together with a fourth 
which came into our hands only a few days ago, in 
order that all true Christians who have the fear of God 
before their eyes, may hold in horror so execrable an 
apostasy, and arm themselves with constancy to follow 
the truth they profess. 

This has seemed to us the more necessary, in that 
our country swarms, so to speak, with cowardly Chris- 
tians, who perhaps may yet be still more easily tempted 
to abandon the truth of the gospel. Each seems to 
hold in horror the cruelties and the policy of the clergy 
of Rome, but there are some also among them who ap- 
pear willing to excuse the fall of their brethren, and to 
furnish matter of triumph to the persecution of the law 
of God. Some go farther still, and by the abominable 
maxims of Hobbes (who maintains that the confession 
of the mouth by no means hurts a man's conscience 
when commanded by the sovereign) try to colour the 
weakness of those who have revolted, as if God were 
not the lord of our bodies and souls alike, and had not 
equally redeemed both these parts of our being. Others, 
allowing themselves to be caught unawares by these 
specious terms, peace and union, the church catholic, and 
antiquity, are already inclined to renounce the truth, and 



THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. 243 

to embrace the traditions of Rome, on the first oppor- 
tunity that promises well for their worldly interests. 
And, to conclude, there are some who think that the 
Roman religion is not so hideous as it is represented, 
that the pastors make frightful monsters and spectres 
out of it, for the purpose of inspiring us with a horror 
for it, so as the better to keep us in captivity to them- 
selves and to the authority which they have usurped 
from the church catholic. It may well be seen, say 
they, that the differences betwixt us are not so con- 
siderable as is imagined ; that this appears evident from 
the writings addressed to us by the clergy of France, 
and even from the proper terms of the council of Trent ; 
and that it is this which has been made as clear as day- 
light by the Bishop of Meaux, a prelate who is like an 
impenetrable buckler, against which the ministers have 
launched all their envenomed shafts in vain. 

Thus do men now sport with religion, and such are 
the pernicious fruits, proceeding from the abyss and 
from the prince of darkness, to poison men's consciences. 
How pitiable a condition is that to which we see the 
true church now reduced ! alarmed on all sides by 
enemies from without, and within, torn by her own 
bowels. It is time then to awake, and for the shep- 
herds in Zion to do their utmost to preserve their flocks 
from the abominations of Babel. Let every man, there- 
fore, open the eyes of his understanding that he may 
discover the difference that lies between our doctrine 
and that of Antichrist : and let none of us be blinded by 
the delusion that the causes of our separation lie only 
in trifles and unimportant ceremonies ; or, in fact, that 
our ancestors who shed their blood in witnessing to the 
truth, deceived themselves, or had a settled design to 
seduce us. Let us but cast our eyes over this work, 
m 2 



244 REFLECTIONS, &C. SECOND PART, 

and after examining it without prejudice, we shall 
laid open to us the genius of popery in the unheard of 
acts of violence and cruelty practised against us. ac- 
cording to the positive accounts and statements fur- 
nished by the author. Is this the conduct of the chin 
catholic, whose title Rome now bears with iinpunitv r 
Are these the arms which Jesus Christ has put into the 
hands of his apostles, to deliver souls from the power 
of the devil,, and to bring them to the knowledge of his 
gospel ? Certain it is that every man, who is at once 
rational and disinterested, will decide that such methods 
are the most impious and the most horrible that the 
pagans ever practised for the purpose of putting c: 
Christianity. 

Here we may discern the true mark of the beast, 
and the character of Antichrist, and even although we 
had not an infinitude of other proofs, this sole barbarity, 
or rather this madness, sufficiently shews that the pon- 
tiff of Rome is the antagonist of the Saviour of I 
world. 

But it is in the first part of this work that we shall 
discover the impurities of Babylon, and the falseness of 
of her doctrines ; it is there that one must see it clear 
as day that Rome is the mother of abominations and 
the spiritual whore. Are these calumnies or malignant 
interpretations of her sentiments ? Can it be that we 
shall be convinced of this by the petition which the 
clergy of France have laid before the king, and by the 
Confession of Faith,, in double columns, which appeared 
lately ? We leave the reader to judge if this conduct 
be wise, and if it bear the character oi the Spirit of 
God. It is not our design to go to the bottom of this 
matter here, since our author has done it with so much 
solidity, and with such force of reason, that every on- 



THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. 245 

prejudiced person must clearly acknowledge the victory 
gained over her enemies by our afflicted church.* 

But for what remains, what avail these advantages 
in this corrupt age — an age in which the legitimate 
force of reason is superseded, and fire and sword are 
employed in tyrannising over men's consciences ? — an 
age, I repeat, in which men have the impudence to 
maintain that even supposing Rome to have all the 
hideous deformity imputed to her by the ministers, yet 
no one has any reason for coming out of her, — that the 
Reformation was no better than a schism and a separa- 
tion on insufficient grounds, and that as our adversaries 
were for so many ages in possession of the church, we 
had no right to form a new one. Such is the last 
entrenchment of the Church of Rome by which she pre- 
tends to shelter herself from our attacks, and to elude 
all the objections of pretended heretics. When they 
saw the battle going against them, they agreed to con- 
sult the oracle of Satan, but our pastors having exposed 
its falsehood and illusions, they resolved at length to 
borrow stronger arms from the same quarter, and to 
banish all the ministers from their native country, or 
compel them and their flocks to renounce their creed 
by the violence and barbarity of dragoons, bearing the 
true marks of the spirit of hell. 

We admit, indeed, that our enemies have the better 
of us, and that they triumph at our expense ; but how 
can this avail them, or injure us ? Our doctrine pre- 
sents to us the simple truth of the gospel; theirs con- 
tains only falsehoods and traditions. And albeit, we 

* Referring to that division of the First Part of the ' Reflections, 1 
&c. in which the author refutes, one by one, the charges preferred by 
the Roman Catholic clergy against the Protestants, of misrepresenting 
and calumniating the doctrines of the papacy. — Ed. 



246 REFLECTIONS, &C. SECOND PART. 

suffer and are despised, while Rome, on the other hand, 
is elevated on a throne, and tramples us under her feet, 
we are not therefore cast down, but, on the contrary, 
we glory in our tribulations, and regard our calamities 
as an infallible proof of the truth of our faith, whereas 
the rage and fury of our enemies truly betoken error and 
falsehood. 

Let us read, then, these letters with self- application, 
that we may confirm ourselves in the faith, for in them 
we have pictured to the life both the horrible nature of 
apostasy and the glory of perseverance. Let us also 
carefully examine the whole epistle of St. Paul to the 
Hebrews, where the apostle's only object is to preserve 
the Christians of his day in the possession of the truth, 
and to prevent their return to the synagogue, to which 
they were in danger of being led by the dread of per- 
secution. Let us not imagine that the criminality of the 
apostates who now join the Church of Rome, is much 
less frightful than that of the first Christians who re- 
lapsed into Judaism, whatever colours may be given to 
their abjuration ; and, in fine, let us recal to mind that 
terrible sentence pronounced by the apostle on those 
who sinned against the blood of the New Testament, so 
that, knowing the judgments of the Lord, we may per- 
severe and fortify ourselves more and more in the faith 
he announces to us. Oh, how precious is the truth of 
the gospel to those who have considered its evidence 
and admirable connexion ! Assuredly, it is of infinitely 
greater value than all the treasures of the earth. 

Of this we hope ere long to give you a distinct idea 
in an explanation of the doctrines of the Reformed, 
comprising all the articles of the faith, which we lately 
received. It is a treatise to which all enlightened per- 
sons give this testimony, that they never read any thing 



THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. 247 

more solidly written, or containing stronger proofs for 
the establishment of the truth, and the conviction of 
falsehood. This work will form a direct refutation of 
the book published by the Bishop of Condom, under the 
false title of ' Explanation of Catholic Doctrine,' and 
about which so much noise has been made by Rome for 
some years past.* 

But without further anticipations, we shall conclude 
with the prayer that it may please the Father of lights 
to shed more and more upon his church, his Spirit of 
grace and truth, that so the kingdom of his Son may be 
firmly established to everlasting ages ; that He may 
triumph over all his enemies ; and that our hearts may 
at length rejoice in the prosperity, and in the happy 
days of the church. 



REFLECTIONS, &c. 

SECOND PART. 

Since finishing the first part of this small work, the 
total Revocation of the Edict of Nantes has taken 
place. The man who would complete the history of 
our calamities, would require, indeed, to have the pen 
ever in his hand, for the volume receives additions every 
day. God knows when this sad scene will close, and 
when our country will cease to be the theatre on which 
are enacted the crudest acts of fury the world has ever 

* A translation of the work here referred to, may possibly appear 
in the controversial department of these Memorials. The English 
reader must be struck with the resemblance between the controversial 
policy of the papacy in France at that time, and in England at the 
present day, as well as between the pretexts for going over to the 
papacy employed then and now. — Ed. 



248 DREADFUL APOSTASY OF TWO PASTORS. 

witnessed. I trust that God will give us grace to reeal 
some day the story of these cruelties, so as to lessen the 
scandal caused by so many falls. Such a history will 
inform us that there were not enough of just men in 
Sodom to preserve it, and to be the salt of the earth. 
Some such there have been, nevertheless, and we daily 
learn that new instances of constancy accompany new 
acts of rage. At Lunel, in Languedoc, a poor man 
expired suspended at the fire-place by his feet, and per- 
petually repeating, ' death rather than the mass ! ' At 
Nismes a few held out : the cowardice of the two 
wretched ministers, Cheron and Paulhian, rent the 
hearts of others. These were the men, who during the 
commotions of the Cevennes, cried ' Peace, peace. 
Obedience and fidelity to sovereigns.' It is not thus 
that the gospel of grace and peace is defended, but by 
constancy, by patience, and by martyrdom. These men 
by the magniloquence of their style, imposed on many, 
but experience has shown that they were frozen to the 
very heart, gellez jusques dans les entrailles. The cir- 
cumstances that attended their fall, may well make one 
shudder with horror. One of the two, r Cheron, in his 
last sermon, and after a long exhortation to persever- 
ance, called on his hearers to rise, and hold up their 
hands, with the most horrible imprecations on such as 
would not defend the reformation till death, which was 
done by those present with floods of tears, and he him- 
self pronouncing repeatedly, and with a loud voice, 
anathema, anathema, on all who should fail to do so, 
and on himself should he not keep his word. Good 
God, such a farce ! This wretch four days thereafter, 
bowed the knee to the idol, and shared the spoils of the 
sanctuary with his colleague, receiving the baptismal 
bason and the communion cups, together with the 



SUFFERINGS OF CAPTURED EMIGRANTS. 249 

money in the chest, and the promise of a pension. 
Meanwhile near two thousand persons left that city, and 
several of those who remained in it, held out and suf- 
fered the greatest cruelties. These were such in the 
case of a worthy gentil-homme, called la Casargne, that 
he lost his reason. That is the height of cruelty ; they 
have no wish to kill, but refuse death to the poor un- 
happy creatures who ask for it, and never leave their 
victims, until by dint of torture they lose either their 
souls or their reason. 

Persecutions have led many to resolve on leaving the 
kingdom at the risk of being condemned to the galleys 
for life, but the greater number have been retaken on 
the frontiers. Lyons and the other towns leading into 
Switzerland, are full of prisoners. On the Flemish 
frontier, at Valenciennes, St. Omer, Lisle, Tournay, 
and even throughout Picardy and up to Paris, the pri- 
sons seem as if ready to burst with women, children, 
and men, taken on their flight and devoted, God knows 
to what punishments. Ministers banished in terms of 
the Edict, are allowed to take with them such of their 
children only as are under seven years of age. Can 
cruelty be carried farther than this ? To rend the finest 
feelings of fathers and mothers, to prevent children 
from following their fathers and mothers into exile ; to 
deprive poor exiles of the sole comfort remaining to 
them, that of being accompanied by their beloved chil- 
dren, parts of their very selves ? Was ever the like of 
this witnessed ? To retain these in a kingdom by hor- 
rible penalties, that there they may endure sufferings 
still more horrible ! To ask for death or banishment as 
a favour, and to be unable to obtain either, — is not this 
to drive people to the very extremity of human misery ? 

But I return to the Revocation of the Edict of 
m 5 



250 INCONSISTENCY OF THE EDICT OF REVOCATION. 

Nantes. The piece is rare and curious. It is sufficient 
of itself to eternise the shame of those who produced it, 
and to establish our innocence, and therefore do I insert 
it here.* 

There can be no doubt that this document was called 
for, but it should have appeared either at an earlier or 
later date. Earlier, that there might be some authority 
and pretext for the violent acts that have been com- 
mitted previous to this revocation. Nothing could be 
said in answer to the following reasoning. The Edicts 
are left without revocation : until revoked, they oblige 
to their observance ; yet, while they remain on paper, 
they are violated even* where by unheard-of outrages, so 
that, first of all, these edicts must be revoked, in order 
that when such outrages are committed, it may be said, 
that nevertheless there is no violation of the edicts, 
these having no force after their revocation. On the 
other hand, were it intended that no respect was to be 
paid to such reasoning, and that the course which has 
been begun must be continued, then people ought to 
have waited until all had been accomplished, instead 
of publishing an edict, in which we read in express 
terms that liberty is granted to the said pei*sons of the 
Pretended Reformed religion, while waiting until it shall 
please God to enlighten them as well as others, to remain 
in the cities and places of our kingdom, lands, and terri- 
tories subject to us, there to continue their commerce, and 
enjoy their possessions, without being subjected to molestation 
or hindrance, under pretext of the said religion. This 
clause allowed many to recover their breath ; they 
thought that they should at least have it in their power 
to live and die without having hangmen ever at their 

* For the Edict of Revocation, see Appendix VI. 






THE REFORMED ACQUITTED BY THE EDICT. 251 

sides ; but in fulfilment of this promise, soldiers have 
been sent wherever they had not before appeared, for 
the purpose of committing the same brutal outrages 
as before. Thus Normandy has been given over to the 
rage of the soldiery. Sedan, a frontier city, noted for 
its fidelity, has experienced all the horrors of the crudest 
war. Will the day ever come, when this mysterious 
course of procedure will be understood ? What does all 
this mean ? What name could you give it ? To speak, 
to write, to promise with all solemnity, and then make 
a jest of all that is said and written, to the contempt 
alike of God and men ! 

We are greatly indebted indeed to Providence, and 
ought to acknowledge our obligation. Truly it has 
watched over the wording of this law, and has had a 
regard for our innocence. Who could have answered 
for it, but that there might have been inserted in the 
preamble, a notice of our pretended rebellions, of our 
furious proceedings in the course of the last century, 
that we are enemies of our king, and of the public tran- 
quillity, and all the other calumnies of our enemies. 
And then following such a detail : For these causes ice 
give you to wit. But there is nothing of the sort, and 
that there is not, is a great proof of our innocence. Will 
posterity 7 believe it, that poor people who have done 
nothing that can be complained of, are at this dav 
treated as they are ; that they have extorted from them 
what is to them infinitely more precious than life, and 
yet, that in the most terrible of all the laws launched 
against them, it has been found impossible to bring for- 
ward any better pretext than a pretended zeal for reli- 
gion ; but be that as it may, God be praised, that the 
remembrance of our past services has sufficiently pre- 
vailed to place our innocence beyond being questioned. 



252 THE KING'S OBLIGATIONS TO THE PROTESTANTS. 

This law is a death stroke to us, yet our very sentence 

of death testifies to our innocence. 

Let us thank God that the king has not forgotten 
that during his minority we preserved for him the crown 
which we had obtained for him at the cost of our blood. 
There are letters yet extant written by the late Queen 
mother and him, to the consistory of Montauban, 
thanking the church for the services rendered by that 
city in the civil wars following the Paris barricades, 
when Montauban not only shut its gates on the princes 
of the blood who opposed the king's party, but its 
inhabitants took the field in behalf of the king, and 
fought with admirable vigour and success. To us Hu- 
guenots alone is the king indebted for the preservation 
of the two extensive provinces of Guyenne and Lan- 
guedoc. It seemed as if people could never tire of 
praising and thanking us at court, in private and in 
public. It was said to our deputies, ■ ask what you 
please and you shall have it, for, the king wants to give 
you proofs of his gratitude/ and it was then that a 
public declaration appeared in which our great services 
were acknowledged. And now see how we are repaid ; 
our churches demolished, our families dispersed, our 
property eaten up by the soldiery, infinite tortures in- 
flicted by a hundred thousand executioners. Such is 
our recompense, and, to crown all, see this favourable 
edict given us as our crown ; but God will crown us in 
the heavens. 

I am of opinion that those Protestant states which 
urged on the truce, are now very sensible of what they 
did in forcing this truce with France upon others. In 
vain were they told — ' You make a sacrifice of your 
religion ; you put arms into the hands of furious per- 
secutors.' Thev would listen to nothing : would believe 



SELFISH POLICY OF SOME PROTESTANT STATES. 253 

nothing ; or, to speak more correctly, they understood 
all, and believed enough, but would care for nothing 
beyond some mere worldly interests. May God not 
impute this sin to them, but may he give them grace to 
sympathize with the sorrows of those brethren whose 
ruin they have hurried on — a ruin of which France 
makes no mystery in the above act. Under favour of 
the truce it is, that she declares war upon us, — for the 
purpose of ruining us, she sought that truce, and it is 
from an apprehension that it may not last long that she 
has precipitated our destruction. She has been afraid 
lest the death of the late king of England and the new 
inclinations of the present, might change the face of 
affairs in Europe ; this last fatal stroke was deemed 
necessary ; it has fallen upon us, but in a few years 
we shall give account of it ; heaven promises deliver- 
ance, it is no deceiver, but will keep its promise to the 
confusion of our persecutors.* 

* The condition of France, and of Louis the Great, during the latter 
years of his reign, fearfully realised this prediction, although it did not 
please the great Head of the Church, even by the peace of Utrecht, to 
improve the condition of the Reformed within France, greatly as that 
settlement must have tended to assure the minds of the refugees from 
that country, amounting, by that time, to not fewer probably than half 
a million souls. 

While the weakness of the French government, the general wretch- 
edness of the population, and the "desolation of the old king, bereaved, 
in rapid succession, of his children and grand- children, fearfully 
avenged the wrongs of the French Protestants and the suppression of 
God's pure worship, in the first half century after the revocation of the 
edict of Nantes, the persistance of the French nation and government 
in that policy, must be regarded as having met its great punishment in 
the revolution of 1792, when about 8000 emigrant priests were driven 
to seek the hospitality of the nations whose religion they and their 
predecessors had kept for above a century, in worse than Egyptian 
thraldom. _ That the general cause of Protestantism was promoted by 
the revocation, and the policy that so long followed it, there cannot be 
a doubt. These deprived France, as a papal power, of the immense 
resources derivable from a large and flourishing Protestant population, 
and distributed those resources over the different Protestant countries 
of Europe. 

To the Rev. Dr. Croly, in the preface to his ' New Interpretation 
of the Apocalypse of St. John,' republished under the title of s Pro- 
testantism the Polar Star of Great ■ Britain,' we are indebted for a 



254 NATIONAL JUDGMENTS INFLICTED ON FRANCE. 

valuable contribution to that providential history, in which Lord 
Bacon, in his time, noted a deficiency which to tibia 
fully supplied. Dr. Croly's principles suggest much interesting -: 
lation, on the purposes of Providence in perm:::: ng the peraecotiaii, 
and long-continued depression of the French Protestant ch 

Thus, had the Protestant population of France continued : 
tolerated by the goTemment of that country, there seems . . 
for doubting that France would have taken the precedence ; I 13 : land 
and Britain, both in commerce and manufactures, and in : : ic n 

of an immense colonial empire. In that case, how amply would the 
papacy have been compensated for the growii:. weakness if Italy, 
Spain, and Portugal, by the energy and activity of a French | 
government, putting forth in aid of its propaganda, the fory :t ; : faces 
drawn from a protestant population : a population making a be a 
its loyalty even to such a government, and concealing, perhaps : 
its own eyes, a selfish compromise of its Christian testimony, under 
the pretext of being content with merf toleration and of meekly re- 
pressing every ambitious desire for political ascendancy? Nor only 
would a papal government in France have been thus mightily strength- 
ened, but the protestant European states would have been less strong 
by the whole amount of the numbers, the skill, the wealth, and. It: as 
add, the godliness and the prayerfulness, of those Profc rees, 

who, in the actual course of events, were dispersed amongst then:, an 
some of whom fought their battles, while others greatly :: tended and 
improved their manufactures. 

Worldly energy and spiritual doth may be regarded as the grand 
snares into which protestant nations as well as individuals are n 
prone to fall, on ceasing to be attacked and persecuted The fate of 
the French Reformed in the 17th century, presenting such a cc:: 
to that of their predecessors in the 16th, might well have impressed 
this lesson on other parts of Europe, so that it should never be for- 
gotten. Yet how very soon does history prove that it was forgotten 

Holland was honoured by producing William III. the great pro- 
j ector and chief of the anti-papal conie lera : y w Erich fast a f e n § : - 1 : fa e 
cause of truth when trampled under foot by France. She, toe. 
materially benefitted by the French emigrat: as. She e :::::: i e : : the 
possession of an immense commerce and colonial empire ; and thus she 
was loudly called upon to extend to remote nations that gospel which 
may be said to have created her domestic govecuiuent and to have 
given to her a distinct nationality. But instead of fulfilling her high 
mission, she became a greedy mercantile monopolist During a long 
neutrality, she enjoyed peace and its advantages, while her neigh- 
bours were vexed by repeated wars. Ye: during the enjoyment of 
advantages which ought to have made the Dutch the most grateful and 
devoted Christians in Europe, they tell into a state of gross woridli- 
ness : with the loss of a lively faith, lost all elevation and energy of 
character; and, as colonists, became noted for a hard-hearted and 
grinding avarice. Finally, they exchanged divine revelation for human 
philosophy as the basis of their government, — symbolized with the 
visionary revolutionists of France, — were despoiled by an angry pro- 
vidence, of their trade, their colonies, their national independe::. :-. 
and, at last, of their distinct existence as a nation : and only with 
the revival of pure Christianity among them, are these national bless- 
ings in the course of being gradually restored. 

For the case of the British empire the reader must consult Dr. 
Croly as above.— Ed. 



No. VI. 

NARRATIVE 
OF POSITIVELY ASCERTAINED FACTS 

WHICH TOOK PLACE 

IN POITOU, ANGOUMOIS, AND ELSEWHERE. 



At Rochefoucauld, in Angoumois, the Sieur Pasquet, 
one of the most considerable burgesses of the place, 
was put into a cradle by the dragoons, as if he had 
been an infant. While there, they made broth which 
they made him swallow boiling hot, and covered his 
whole face with it. This he could escape from only by 
gmng way. 

At Ruffec, also in Angoumois, a very honest burgess, 
called Charpentier, a mail of exemplary life, was seized 
by the dragoons, and killed by their forcing water 
down his throat to excess. He died with great constancy 
without abjuring. 

At Marans in Aunix, Dame Mary Blavou, widow of 
the Sieur du Baugne Gendron, a most respectable 
woman, had dragoons quartered upon her. These put 
her into an arm chair close to the fire-place, then lighted 
a large pan of charcoal, and having attached this poor 
woman by the feet to each corner of the chimney, and 



256 NARRATIVE OF FACTS, &C. 

her arms to the arms of the chair, they applied red hot 
irons to their legs, so that she was confined for a month 
and a half to bed before she recovered. During this 
cruel pastime of the dragoons, two venerable Capuchins 
stood behind the wretched woman's arm-chair. A 
poor Roman Catholic woman wanted to put out the 
fire, but on their threatening to throw her into it, she 
left the house. The person who thus suffered gave way at 
length with great regret, overcome by excessive suffering. 

At Moncoutant, a large parish fronting the forest on 
Saivre, in Lower Poitou, an honest artisan of the place 
was persecuted by the dragoons applying fire to his 
feet in presence of his daughter, a girl of seventeen or 
eighteen years of age. By that daughter he was en- 
couraged to maintain his constancy, and to call on 
Jesus Christ. On this the dragoons laid hold of her, 
and taking off her stockings, rubbed her feet and legs 
all over with butter and grease, and after soaking her 
stockings in these, they made her put them on again. 
After this they applied lint soaked in the same materials, 
and then set fire to it, burning the poor girl's feet to 
the bones, yet neither she nor her father gave way. 

At that same place the dragoons hanged an artisan. 
One of them returning to the room, cut the rope, and 
the poor man fell down, to all appearance dead. Xot 
sure whether he were dead or no, they sent for a sur- 
geon to bleed him, which he would not do, supposing 
the man to be dead. Nevertheless some of the neigh- 
bours brought him to himself again, and he maintained 
his constancy for long after. 

There, too, they put as prisoners into the church 
steeple, such as would not renounce their religion. 
Many of them were compelled to he down in a state of 
nuditv, on the cold church vaults. 



PERSECUTIONS IN POITOU. 257 

The neighbour of a poor widow whom the dragoons 
beat so cruelly that he heard in his own house the blows 
she received, impelled by pity, though a papist, be- 
sought the Sieur Orre, king's procurator in the election 
of Tours and commissary of these dragoons, to have 
compassion on this poor woman ; but the only answer 
was, ' She is an obstinate creature, if she won't change, 
let them kill her/ 

At la Motte St. Heraie, a large country town of 
Poitou, a person named Desre, in endeavouring to es- 
cape from the dragoons, leapt from a wall and broke 
one of his legs. The dragoons laid hold of him, hung 
him up by the other leg, and there left him until he 
should promise to change. 

At Lusignan, a small town of Poitou, a poor peasant 
on t refusing to submit, was stripped naked, and put 
into a prison vault. 

At St. Maixene in Poitou, any one who shewed con- 
stancy, was thrown into a vault where he stood up to 
the knees in mud. Several persons died in consequence. 
A young man after having been thrown in, was taken 
out again, after which on being asked if he would be- 
come a Roman Catholic, he replied, ' Yes, gentlemen, 
and a Turk if you would have me, for the place you 
put me in is truly a hell.' 

That town of St. Maixene shewed an instance of 
admirable constancy. M. Liege, master apothecary, 
from the time that the dragoons first entered the town, 
till the month of October, had to endure two hundred 
and sixty days of them. As he persevered in this re- 
ligion, and he and his family were the last that did so, 
it was resolved that they should be obliged to change, 
cost what it might. M. de Lamoignon de Baville 
being still intendant of that province, M. Liege went 



258 NARRATIVE OF FACTS, &C. 

to find him, and offered to give up his whole property, 
and to leave the place with nothing but his staff in his 
hand. M. de Baville laughed at him ; of thirty dra- 
goons quartered on him, he left him only four ; but the 
next day a whole company was sent him. This worthv 
person has been an example of constancy to all who 
knew him, bearing his affliction with much submission 
and meekness. 

The new converts in that town were paid by a lady 
who was famous for her gallantries, and the looseness of 
her manners ; and yet they would make her pass for a 
good devotee, under the pretext of her being sister to 
a minister. 

Unheard of cruelties were committed at Niort in 
Poitou. An ironmonger there, called Boursaut, having 
been falsely accused of speaking against the Virgin, was 
condemned to the amende honorable, and to have his 
tongue pierced. To this he submitted with great 
cheerfulness, protesting his innocence, and choosing 
rather to suffer than to change his faith, so as to 
astonish even the Papists themselves^ 

At Coulonges les Royaux, a large country town of 
Poitou, some poor widows having concealed themselves 
and their children in the country, the seneschal of the 
place, together with some of the inhabitants and dra- 
goons in arms, went in search of them, and having laid 
hold of them, dragged them cruelly to church, without 
at all regarding their groans and tears. 

In the quarter of Pousages, a large country town of 
Lower Poitou, those who refused to change, were con- 
ducted to a Carmelite abbey, called la Flosseliere, and 
there they were made to go into a low infected ditch, 
where all sorts of filth were thrown, and in particular 
the offals of beasts slaughtered in the abbey. M. de 



CHIEF PERSECUTORS IN POITOU. 259 

Fouchepretz, Lord of Pousauges, was the main instru- 
ment of these cruelties. That gentleman is well known 
in Poitou, by the violence of his zeal, his ignorance in 
regard to religion, and the extortions he formerly com- 
mitted when in command of the company of gens d' 
armes, under the orders of the Duke of Roannois, 
governor of the province, in consequence of which ex- 
tortions his confessor enjoined him to make restitution 
to the extent of twenty or twenty-four thousand livres — ■ 
a result which exceedingly displeased him. 

The most famous converter of Poitou was one called 
Alexis Marsant, sieur de la Cailletiere. He is president 
in the election of Niort, and was for some years mayor. 
He first began the famous conversion of the time when 
M. de Marillac was intendant of Poitou, and went 
heartily into that cruel employment as a means of ex- 
tricating himself from a false step he had committed by 
extorting money from several of the communes of the 
neighbourhood. The truth is, he deserved being 
hanged, but was pardoned by M. de Marillac, who 
knew how fit he was for his purposes. He is of very 
low extraction, and his wife is the daughter of a 
miserable country sergeant, very famous for his mis- 
chievous tricks. Yet he has acquired wealth by pil- 
laging others, and the king of France has ennobled 
him ; his bad morals were so well known that the in- 
tendant s of Poitou have often been told that M. de 
Cailletiere ought to convert himself as well as the 
Huguenots. 

The other great converter of Niort, and the man who 
ruined his town, is called Augier, Sieur de la Terrau- 
diere, an advocate, and the son of a notary. He is very 
poor, and very proud and ambitious, so as to have been 
often reproached for having more gold on his cloak 



260 DESECRATION OF THE CHURCH AT NIORT. 

than in his house. Thus there is nothing he is not ready- 
to do in order to get out of this misery, not sparing 
even his relations or friends. In short, he is universally 
hated by others, though much approved by the in- 
tendants. 

These two wicked men, after being employed in the 
ruin of the church of Niort, posted up the following 
notice in the town after the reformed church was 
pulled down : 

Be it known, that henceforth the market for oxen, asses, 
and pigs, will be held in the place where the Huguenot 
temple formerly stood, with prohibition against holding it 
elsewhere under a penalty of a crown for the first offence. 

Thus inflicting an insult on the poor and afflicted. 

Another case which occurred in Vivarais. 

If the extreme vigour with which the reformed are 
treated in France, gives occasion to but few examples of 
firmness, those it does give occasion to are at least 
illustrious. That of a young man in the new town of 
Beu, in Vivarais, deserves to be known. He first dis- 
played his zeal in assisting, from his own funds, persons 
whose means were inadequate for the support of dra- 
goons billeted on them. This marked him out as a fine 
subject for triumph, and brought down on him a num- 
ber of these furies. He calmly looked on while they 
ravaged his house, and even protested that they might 
do their worst, yet he should not be shaken. Exaspe- 
rated by this avowal, they turned from his house to his 
person. After tearing his hair off, and abusing his face 
in such a manner that his eyes were almost forced from 
their sockets, they hanged him up by the feet, and then 
striking his head, first on one side and then on the 
other, they swung him from side to side for a conside- 



HORRID ACTS IN VIVARAIS AND SAINTONGE. 261 

rable time. Tired of this pastime, they made him turn 
the spit as they were roasting a sheep before a blazing 
fire, forbidding him at the same time to retire from it 
in the least. This he suffered patiently, but only thus 
brought on himself new tortures. His executioner 
stretched him over this great fire, but gained nothing 
by doing so. Each new infliction but led to a new 
exhibition of constancy. As they did not want his 
death so much as his conversion, they did not keep him 
longer over the fire than was requisite to prove how far 
he might be shaken by it, and thus they prevented a 
death that would have saved him from new tortures. In 
order, then, to attack his constancy in a manner that 
risked it more than his life, they put his feet into the 
dripping pan almost red hot, where the mutton fat, fall- 
ing drop by drop, like a shower of fire, penetrated into 
his very bones, and with this melted grease they began 
to baste his legs, but were interrupted by his being sent 
for by the Duke of Noailles, then at Montauban. Before 
setting off, he found an opportunity of giving an account 
of this sad affair to M. Baudon, senior, minister in that 
province, and assured him that after this rude conflict, 
there was nothing he thought he might not endure 
stoutly and successfully. From that minister I learned 
the circumstances of this short statement. 

True statement of what took place in the parish 
of St. Sornin de Sechaud, on Charante, at the 
port of Anvaux, in Saintonge, early in December 
1685. 

John Renaudin, Ship -carpenter, aged about thirty- 
six, a married man, and residing at the port of Anvaux, 
in the house of the widow Martin, having unhappily 
given way under the persecution which prevailed 



262 INSULTS TO THE DEAD. 

throughout the country, about a month or two 
wards, fell into a dangerous illness. A certain monk 
called Father Thomas, an Augustinian of St. Savinien, 
who then discharged the duties of the said parish in the 
absence of the parish priest, came to see the poor sick 
man who was in his death agony, and after many soli- 
citations addressed to the patient, that he word: make 
up his mind to confess to him, and receive the commu- 
nion, the dying man at length openly told him, that he 
neither adhered nor desired in any manner to adhere be 
the religion which he had been compelled to embrace, 
and that he desired to die in that in which, by God's 
grace, he had been born, as he was persuaded that in it 
he should find salvation. On this the monk withdrew 
threatening that he would see to his being taken 
death and dragged on a hurdle. And in fact the man 
dying as soon as the monk withdrew, the latter sent 
three peasants to guard the body from being taken 
away, and the next day sent the police officers,, ~h: 
ordered the body to be opened, which was ::::.e. The 
entrails, heart, liver and lungs were then taken out, and 
put into a cauldron. The body itself was sown Bg s.::er 
some compounds had been put into it. The o££ 
employed was so touched with compassion, that he could 
not forbear saying to the widow Martin, you may : 
the body secretly, for I have no mind to discharge my 
commission. Meanwhile the guards were left, but they. 
wearied with remaining without pay, went off ; the b : :h 
was buried under night in a garden, next to that :: the 
Widow Martin, and the entrails in the widow's own 
garden, being that of the house in which he died, ^ucr. 
is a true account of what passed. 



No. VII. 

PASTORAL LETTER 

TO THE PROTESTANTS OF FRANCE, 

WHO HAVE FALLEN BY FORCE OF TORMENTS. 



I write not to reproach you, my Brethren. The name 
I still give you, notwithstanding your fall, sufficiently 
speaks the reverse, and ought to convince you that I 
come for the purpose of healing, not of irritating your 
wound. I consider you as timid sheep who have been 
driven into disorder and jeopardy by a herd of wolves ; 
and I would fain restore you to your place, like a tender 
and compassionate shepherd, not with the staff in my 
hand, and threats on my lips, but with the motives of 
Christian charity. 

I do not, however, address myself to all who have 
fallen, for I pretend not to comprehend, among the 
objects of my letter, those libertines who have so often 
given the lie to their creed by the disorders of their 
lives, or those cowardly Christians, who following the 
example of those of whom St. Cyprian speaks, as sur- 
rendering before the contest was begun, and who hurrying 
to give in their names, have openly and scandalously 
disavowed the purity of their creed, and renounced 



264 PASTORAL LETTER, &C. 

Jesus Christ. As they have sinned voluntarily, and by 
a criminal indifference to the truth, ' there remaineth 
no more sacrifice for their sin, but a terrible looking for 
of judgment and of fiery indignation, which shall con- 
sume the adversaries.' 

I speak, then, only to you, my dear brethren, who, 
after having suffered for some time, have yielded to the 
violence of a persecution stronger than your courage, 
and have promised to go to mass against the movements 
of your conscience and of your heart ; shaken at first 
by the frightful image of a long mendicity, and at last 
beaten down and overwhelmed by the barbarous and 
unheard-of cruelties of a troop of dragoons, who not 
content with tormenting you during the day, relieve one 
another during the night, in order to prevent you from 
finding in sleep, a moment of comfort and relief from 
your sufferings. 

I sympathise, therefore, very feelingly, with the tor- 
ments you have endured. The cnielest death would 
have been less severe, and much more advantageous ; 
it would have made martyrs everywhere, while this slow 
and refined persecution has hitherto robbed you of that 
glory. Hence I lament for you, and have scarcely the 
hardihood to condemn you. I look upon you as living 
lessons of human weakness, and, judging of myself by 
you, I shudder at beholding so general a defection. It 
is not that your sin is great in the sight of God, 
from the mere consideration of the excellence of the 
doctrines you have abandoned, and which you ought to 
have maintained to the shedding of your blood, and to 
the giving up of the universe itself, had that been in 
your power ; but you had not yet studied martyrdom, 
you had not entered as you ought into the spirit of the 
gospel, which is a spirit of suffering and of poverty. 



EXAMPLE OF ST. PETER. 265 

You learnt only to praise God, amid the blessings 
that he showered upon you, and you were not ready, 
like Job, to bless him amid the evils with which He 
might exercise your patience. See the effects produced 
by being at ease, — the sad consequences of repose and 
well-being ; a Christian preserves his firmness amid the 
horror of combats, but loses it in the arms of effemi- 
nacy, and in the bosom of peace. Thus was the church 
seen to fall of old into an apostacy like yours, on 
tasting the mortal charms of the reign of Constantine. 

Forgive my giving this name to your fault. Grief 
extorts it from me. Can one behold a fall so fatal and 
so general, causing the lapse of a thousand on the right 
hand, and a thousand on the left, and which the whole 
world regards as the triumph of error, and the unset - 
tlement of truth, without uttering the wish of the pro- 
phet Jeremiah — " Oh, that my head were waters ? " &c. 

Nevertheless, I have no intention of throwing you 
into despair; your fault, like that of St. Peter, is one of 
weakness, and Jesus Christ is ready to forgive you for 
it, as he forgave him, if you profit by the looks and 
warnings he bestows on you. True, you have now nei- 
ther churches, nor ministers, nor sermons, nor books ; 
neither the living word nor the dead letter; none of 
the ordinary means employed by the providence and the 
wisdom of God for the conversion of sinners ; but your 
heart speaks to you, listen to its voice ; your conscience 
unceasingly reproaches you for your cowardice, follow 
the movements it suggests, stifle them not. May this 
letter reach you, in spite of the vigilance of your ene- 
mies ; it is the third cock crowing ; follow St. Peter's ex- 
ample, go from the house of Caiaphas and weep bitterly. 

To this end, beware of giving heed to two or three 
dangerous and deplorable illusions. The first is, your 

N 



266 PASTORAL LETTER, &C. 

supposing that although you have joined the external 
communion of the Church of Rome, your heart, never- 
theless, never will give its adhesion to her worship. 
Know that nothing can be more criminal than such a 
thought ; that such inconsistency is insulting to God ; 
that God demands all or nothing, body and soul, and 
that being the Redeemer of both, he desires that both 
should glorify him. We must not only believe with the 
heart unto righteousness, we must also make confession 
with the mouth unto salvation. Place before your 
minds the courage and the piety of the primitive Chris- 
tians, who preferred losing their lives to giving the he 
even by the most inconsiderable external act, to their 
internal convictions ; call to mind the just severity 
exercised by the church of those days against those 
cowardly Christians, who although they had not offered 
incense to the idols, had failed not, nevertheless, to 
shelter themselves from the rigour of the ordinances, 
by obtaining certificates from the magistrates, purport- 
ing that they had so offered it. Propose to yourselves 
the example of the generous Eleazar, that great martyr 
of the Old Testament, at the time when Antiochus per- 
secuted the Jews with the view of obliging them to 
renounce their religion, and the worship of the true 
God. That holy man was arrested for the purpose of 
being compelled to this by force of torture, and while 
some who stood by exhorted him to obey his persecutor, 
at least externally and in shew, so as to escape punish- 
ment, the historian remarks, that looking to his great 
age, as one who had grown white in virtue, and done 
nothing unworthy of a true son of Abraham, he imme- 
diately replied with admirable courage, that he would 
rather die than consent to so criminal an action. 

The second illusion against which vou must be on 



DANGEROUS ILLUSIONS EXPOSED. 267 

your guard, is the resolution which almost all of you 
have taken, to remain in the Church of Rome only so 
long as is necessary for putting your affairs in order, 
and for amassing a little money to assist in transporting 
yourselves into a foreign country, and living there in 
the profession of the truth, and at the same time rescued 
from misery. This idea is not, indeed, so criminal as 
the other ; nevertheless, it is dangerous. For, in the 
first place, who shall assure you that death will not 
break up all your plans ? Our lives are short, and is 
it not folly, or rather madness, to risk eternal happi- 
ness in order to preserve goods that perish ? 

Moreover, in what light think you others will view 
your conduct ; nay in what light will you regard it your- 
selves ? Does it not suggest the belief that you follow 
Jesus only because of the loaves he gives you, and that, 
wherever you go, if called upon to endure death or 
poverty from love to him, you will anew renounce his 
service ? Thus your life will be but a continual course 
of treasons and unavailing returns to God. Your repent- 
ance cannot be genuine if it have no relation to w T hat 
has been your sin. You have publicly denied Jesus 
Christ, and you must publicly acknowledge him. Your 
cowardice and timidity have scandalized your brethren ; 
vou must edify them by your courage and your firmness. 
You have saddened the church of God by a great blas- 
phemy ; you must now gladden it by an open confession. 
You have made a sacrifice of truth to riches ; your fall 
has caused that of many ; and now you must raise them 
up again, by setting them the example of a prompt and 
generous return to the truth. Let not poverty frighten 
you : Jesus Christ has consecrated it in his own person. 
Though he was rich, yet for. our sakes he became poor, 
and from that happy moment poverty has had nothing 
N 2 



268 PASTORAL LETTER, &C. 

frightful in it. Give yourselves up to his Providence, 
and repose yourselves in the tenderness of his love. He 
feeds the fowls of the heaven, and ye are of more value 
in his eyes. Be not confounded by the fear of death ; 
for death is honourable when endured for the sake of the 
Gospel. Our forefathers eagerly courted it, and met it 
with pleasure, in so good a cause ; follow their foot- 
steps ; fear not those who can kill the body only ; meet 
death with courage ; it will promote the kingdom of 
God, and may convert your persecutors whom your 
weakness confirms more and more in error ; it will 
deliver you from the miseries of life, and while it with- 
draws vou from the society of sinners, will introduce 
you into that of angels, and ought a man to dread a 
death followed by such glorious consequences ? 

Finally, the last illusion which I would conjure you 
to guard yourselves against, is the pernicious example 
of some pastors who have abandoned the truth of the 
Gospel. Contemplate their character, and their con- 
duct, and you will be neither surprised nor scandalized 
at what they have done. These are volatile Demases, en- 
grossed with this present world, and sunk in a base love 
of created good. These are men without godliness. 
sensual and corrupt, blown up with pride and vanity, 
and to use the words of the Holy Spirit, ' these are 
clouds without water, carried about of winds, trees 
whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked 
up by the roots ; raging waves of the sea, foaming out 
their own shame, wandering stars to whom is reserved 
the blackness of darkness for ever/ Set before your 
mind's eye, on the contrary, the many pastors who have 
suffered, and are now suffering, exile, imprisonment, 
and poverty, for the defence of the faith ; recall to mind 
those worthies — that remnant according to the election 



EXHORTATIONS TO STEADFASTNESS. 269 

of grace, who still hold out against the horrible op- 
pression under which you have unhappily succumbed. 

Know, in fine, that such persons are the salt of the 
earth, the light of the world, the most precious portion 
of the church of God ; that God beholds nothing on 
earth more deserving of his regard ; that in his view the 
pomp of kings is but a shadow and a vapour ; but that 
he looks with delight on those valiant persons who 
struggle with afflictions, and not only patiently, but even 
joyfully, see all their worldly wealth devoured, in conse- 
quence of their maintaining his cause. 

I conjure you, then, by the interest you have in your 
salvation, by that harvest of glory which God is pre- 
paring in eternity for those who serve Him faithfully in 
time, to recover promptly from your fall, and to give 
glory to God. Recall to your recollection all the maxims 
of the Gospel. Think of death, judgment, and eter- 
nity ; think of that terrible day, when the Son of God 
will deny before his Father and his angels, those who 
shall have denied him before men. 

Place before your minds the fatal consequences of 
that just and irrevocable sentence, those horrible flames 
which will burn you for ever without consuming you, 
that worm which dieth not, those keen and excruciating 
reproaches of conscience which will never cease, the 
complaints of those who shall have perished through 
your example, those of your children and your pos- 
terity who will accuse you alone of all the terrible tor- 
ments they shall endure, and who shall eternally make 
that terrible cry resound in your ears, ' It is you, my 
father I it is you, my mother ! who have precipitated 
me into this gulph of misery/' 

If you have been too weak to hold out against tor- 
ments which could be only of very short duration ; if 



270 PASTORAL LETTER, &C. 

all your constancy has vanished when called to experience 
the barbarous ingenuity of torture inflicted by a troop 
of dragoons more inhuman than beasts of prey, what 
will become of you while groaning under the infliction 
of torments, compared to which those you now regard 
as intolerable will appear like positive pleasure ? How 
will you contrive to escape from the violence and the 
rage of those infernal dragons which never sleep, but 
are for ever awake during that eternal night, for the 
purpose of eternally tormenting you ? In vain will you 
have recourse to prayers and tears ; to these they will 
be deaf and insensible. In vain will you change your 
creed and adopt their sentiments, — promise to them 
that you will hate God and accuse him of injustice. 
They will laugh at your fickleness and your sufferings. 
Think but of these things; be seized with fear and 
horror. Have mercy on yourselves, save yourselves 
by drawing yourselves out of the fire ; if ye will hear 
the voice of God, harden not your hearts : it is a ter- 
rible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 
God is a consuming fire, — lift up then the hands which 
hang down, and the feeble knees. Rest not long in 
impenitence ; your sin, which in its origin is but one 
of infirmity, will, if persevered in, become an enormous 
crime ; for God includes the fearful in the same con- 
demnation with the greatest sinners, even placing these 
at their head. Rev. xxi. 8. 

Now may He that is able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all that we ask or think, raise such of you 
as are fallen, support such as have hitherto stood, and 
present both faultless before the presence of his glory* 
with exceeding joy. Amen. Epis. of St. Jude. 



No. VIII. 
LETTER TO A FRIEND 

OX THE CONDITION TO WHICH 

THE VIOLENCE OF THE DRAGOONS HAS REDUCED 
PROTESTANTS IN FRANCE. 



Dear Sir, 
I bitterly lament with you over the desolations of 
the church — now exposed as a prey to the fury of 
the most cruel enemies ; and as these desolations are 
far greater and more lamentable than were those in former 
times of Sion in her misery, I cannot refrain from often 
crying with Jeremiah, — " Oh that my head were waters, 
and mine eyes a fountain of tears/' I would venture 
even to call the great God who sees my heart to wit- 
ness, that could the shedding of my own blood extin- 
guish, or even moderate, the violence of the fire that 
devours her, I would give it with joy. But albeit these 
her calamities most sensibly affect me, they do not all 
affect me in the same manner. I mourn for those 
generous confessors of Jesus Christ, those glorious and 
unconquerable martyrs of his truth, whom neither 
death, nor life, nor hunger, nor thirst, nor nakedness, 
nor peril, nor fire, nor sword, nor torture, nor re- 
proach, has been able to separate from his communion ; 



272 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

and I mourn, too, over those fearful persons whose 
faith has proved too weak for these trials which he has 
honoured them by calling them to meet, and who yet, 
like cowards, have forsaken and denied that good Mas- 
ter. But my tears for the former, are like those which 
his sufferings drew forth of old from the eyes of the 
daughters of Jerusalem when they accompanied him to 
Calvary, while on the other hand, those I weep for 
the latter, are such as St. Paul asked the Corinthians to 
shed for the unhappy persons who were dishonouring 
their Church. I lament for their crime and for the 
lamentable consequences which it necessarily draws 
after it. 

Not that I do not, equally with yourself, feel greatly 
inclined to excuse then weakness, and that all that you 
allege in the way of plausible reasons while endeavour- 
ing to lesson the horror of their fall, has not presented 
itself to my mind. But, neither you nor I being their 
judge, of what avail is our justifying them, if the great 
judge of the whole universe with whom they have to 
do, and into whose hands it is a fearful thing to fall, 
condemn them ? It is no advantage to a person, in a 
dangerous illness, for his physician to try to pass it off 
as a slight indisposition ; — that would be only to make 
his case desperate. I shall guard myself, then, from 
nattering them while they remain in a condition which 
to me seems deplorable, and, continuing in which, I 
believe that nothing can shield them from the fulmina- 
tion of that terrible sentence pronounced by Jesus 
Christ, in the 1 Oth of Matthew, against those who are 
unfaithful to him , — " Whosoever shall deny me before 
men, him will I also deny before my father who is in 
heaven." 

You will allege that that sentence does not apply to 



ON ENSNARING PROMISES. 273 

those at least who have not made any formal abjuration, 
and with respect to whom it has been thought enough 
to oblige them to promise that they will go to mass and 
sign a certain act which, you tell me, speaks neither 
directly nor indirectly of abjuration. But if these are, 
indeed, your sentiments, allow me to tell you, that you 
are misled by the greatest possible illusion. Although 
there be no more than a simple promise to go to mass, 
is there not in that promise an express abjuring of our 
religion ? Can that promise be fulfilled without enter- 
ing the communion of Rome ? Is not the mass the 
very soul of that communion, and to be present at it, 
— is it not the mark and sign of all who belong to that 
communion ? Can a man embrace the communion of 
Rome without renouncing our communion ? Can there 
be any concord between Christ and Belial, — between 
light and darkness ? Can a man range himself in one 
party, without forsaking the ranks of that w^hich is op- 
posed to it ? Accordingly, is not this the plain meaning 
of that promise, and, still more evidently, the meaning 
attached to it by those who exact it, since they apply 
the term conversion to all, and denominate all who make 
it converts, from the moment they have done so, or at 
least from the moment they put the promise in execu- 
tion ? 

But, granting that a doubt may be raised as to the 
meaning of this promise, there can be none as to the 
act annexed to it, and assuredly you cannot have seen 
it, otherwise you would not speak of it as you have 
done. The following nearly are the terms in which it 
is drawn up : ' We acknowledge that the differences which 
led our fathers to withdraw from the Church, were not 
sufficient to oblige them to separate from it. We therefore 
re-unite ourselves, on condition that we be permitted to 

N 5 



274 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

make our remonstrances to the clergy, in order that many 
abuses which have crept into the Roman Church may be 
removed. 9 

In this act, four considerable things are done by 
those who subscribe it. 1. The name of church is 
given, purely and simply, to the Roman communion, to 
the exclusion of every other. 2. Our communion is 
charged with schism, and our fathers are treated as 
schismatics, being accused of having separated them- 
selves from the church without any just ground. 3. It 
is added that, owning the injustice and the rashness of 
that separation, they re-enter the communion of Rome 
as the bosom of the true church. 4. Every thing ob- 
jectionable in that communion is reduced to certain 
abuses, and with these they profess to charge only what, 
in a restricted sense, is called the Roman church ; these 
abuses they are content to leave to the correction of the 
clergy, if that body shall think fit to correct them ; 
beyond this, approving, and acknowledging as orthodox 
and holy, all that is essential in her doctrine, worship, 
and discipline. 

Now, can there be a more formal abjuration of the 
Reformed religion, which assumes this fair name only 
as maintaining that it has disengaged the Christian 
religion from all the impurities which defiled it in the 
Roman communion, so that one could hardly recognise 
it there, — has delivered its doctrines from a number of 
capital errors, — and has purified its worship from a 
thousand detestable superstitions, — has banished every 
thing tyrannical and anti-christian from its govern- 
ment; and, in one word, has re-established it, as 
much as possible, in the condition in which it was in 
the days of the apostles ? Can they who have been 
made to abjure it under the name of the errors of 



GUILT OF EXTERNAL ABJURATIONS. 275 

Calvin, have more clearly, or more strongly, condemned 
that reformation ? And must not that man be strangely 
prejudiced who can imagine that an act of this sort, 
speaks neither directly nor indirectly of abjuration ? 
Admit to me, Sir, that if it be true, as you and I are 
convinced it is, that our communion, which recognises 
no chief but Jesus Christ, no rule of faith and worship 
but the scriptures, is his real mystical body and his true 
church, they cannot have renounced and condemned it, 
as they have done in subscribing this wretched act, 
without denying their glorious Redeemer. 

You must also admit, that there have been very few 
whose abjurations have not been purely external : who 
at the very time when they condemned our holy religion, 
and justified the Roman, did not feel their consciences 
revolt against these declarations, and whose hearts did 
not give the lie to their hands and mouths. For 
whence can they have derived that pretended illumina- 
tion which they are compelled to vaunt, so ridiculously, 
in their profession of faith ? Can it have come from 
those thundering declarations which have been unceas- 
ingly launched against us for several years past ? Or 
from the blasphemies, the execrable oaths, and other 
fruits of the fury of those demons who have been em- 
ployed to give the finishing stroke to what these decla- 
rations were effecting only with a wearisome slowness ? 
All the world knows that the brightness of lightning can 
only blind ; and we know, too, that infernal fires such as 
those of the burning furnace to which we have been 
exposed, are black, enveloping all things with the smoke 
of a frightful and profound darkness ; and that, in fact, 
our enemies have reckoned only on that darkness, and on 
the terror they calculated on its impressing on the souls 
of the greater number of those who have found them- 



276 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

selves enveloped in it, and whom it has deprived of ail 
powers of resistance. 

Now, although such as, in this sad condition, have 
given way to the efforts of persecutors, have not changed 
their sentiments, they have not the less really abjured 
our religion : — they have not the less really denied 
Christ before men. Religion when regarded as the 
only sacred tie that unites the faithful in one body and 
one religious fellowship, solely consists in this, that 
these all profess their belief in the same fundamental 
doctrines, — all agree in one form of external worship— 
and all submit to the regulations of the same discipline. 
Is it not, then, a real abjuration of our religion, so- 
lemnly to profess that we reject its doctrines, and re- 
nounce its worship and government ? Men cannot read 
our hearts. They can know nothing of what passes 
there except in so far as we reveal it by our discourses, 
in speech or writing, or by some other signs intended 
to be the outward expressions of our thoughts ; and, 
of necessity, they must be guided by such declarations. 
Before men, accordingly, Jesus Christ can be denied 
only by these outward expressions. For this, it suffices 
that a man witnesses, in whatever fashion, either that he 
knows him not, or that he has no wish any longer to 
know him. In fact it was thus that St. Peter denied 
him ; it was not in his heart that he did so ; it was only 
by his mouth ; and yet his denial of him not the less 
degraded him from the glorious charge of the apostle- 
ship, and plunged him into an abyss of affliction and 
misery. 

Most unjustly, then, do they who imitate his crime, 
flatter themselves with this vain thought that it is 
sufficient that in great persecutions, we preserve our 
hearts for God, these being what he seeks above all 



DUTY OF EXTERNAL WORSHIP. 277 

things. It is true, that above all things else He asks? 
for our hearts ; and if we refuse these, in vain do we 
offer him all beside. But it is no less certain that with 
our hearts He would also have all beside ; that He will 
have every thing or nothing ; will not share matters 
with any one ; will not suffer us to halt between two 
opinions ; that if we believe with the heart unto 
righteousness, we must also make confession with the 
mouth unto salvation ; and that we lie under an indis- 
pensable obligation to glorify him in our bodies and in 
our spirits which are his. And, in fact, since, as a full 
acknowledgement of the infinite benefits wherewith he 
so liberally supplies us in nature, sheds down upon us 
abundantly in grace, and will multiply upon us for ever 
in glory, he demands no more than that we should 
glorify him, and seeing that we can glorify him only by 
the public expressions of our love, respect, fidelity, and 
obedience ; shall we be wanting to so rightful a duty, 
when he asks us to render it to him solemnly, and in 
the manner which of all others is most agreeable to him, 
without incurring the guilt of the blackest ingratitude, 
and drawing down upon us, by so detestable a crime, 
the most terrible effects of his anger and indignation ? 

I will farther add, so far from the feelings of love 
and respect retained by these wretched creatures in 
their hearts for the gospel after their fall, possibly 
diminishing in any thing the horror of their sin, it is 
this very thing that renders it more crying and more 
heinous. Had they been seduced by some impostor 
who had blinded them with his illusions, and effaced 
from their hearts the impressions made there by the 
word of God, they might in some sort excuse them- 
selves on the great day, as having done what they be- 
lieved to have been right. But for them to go as they 



278 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

have done in the face of their own convictions, to 
smother the motions of their conscience, to renounce 
known truth and prefer a lie, to forsake a way which 
they are sure would conduct them to life and salvation, 
and to enter an opposite path which they are convinced 
will lead to death and eternal perdition ; is not this sin- 
ning in the most grievous manner that can be ? Is it 
not thus that we quench the Holy Spirit ; that we sin 
against him; that we commit the sin which is not to be 
forgiven ; the sin unto death ? In fact, when one has 
gone thus far, of what is he not capable ? After a man 
has brought himself to embrace the Roman communion, 
although convinced that it is full of mortal errors and 
detestable superstitions, what scruple could he have, 
after that, to embrace the Mussulman religion, did he 
happen to live under a powerful domination which set 
itself to compel all to do so who would not do so of their 
awn accord, since the difference is only in degree, and 
since after having renounced the purity of the gospel, 
one step more would lead him to renounce the gospel 
itself? Ah, Sir, how terrible this condition were God 
to treat those who have unhappily fallen into it ever so 
little according to rigorous justice. His severe justice,. 
which condemns men, not only for the sins they have 
actually committed, but for those also which they are 
disposed to commit, might punish those who thus 
abandon his truth, as if they had saved themselves 
among the Turks, among Jews, or among other unbe- 
lievers. In fine, what completes the aggravation of 
their crime, is that by their cowardice they make the 
weak lose courage, and by their bad example they drag 
them over the same precipice they have fallen from 
themselves. It is because they thus confirm in error 
and superstition those who from their birth have been 



GUILT OF RELIGIOUS COWARDICE. 279 

I 

immersed in it ; so that the fall of the former, and the 
hardening of the latter, may very justly be laid to their 
charge. 

But, say you, that if they have sinned against their 
conscience, they have not at least done it of their own 
accord, but only under the influence of a violence which 
they found it impossible to resist ; that they have done 
it only with regret, and to save themselves from a hell 
into which all have been cast who remained firm. I 
admit, Sir, that among all the severest persecutions the 
church has ever endured, none has ever been so violent, 
— so outrageous as this. But you must, at the same 
time, admit that all who have changed, have not been 
exposed to the same rigour and cruelty. You know 
that very many have not had the courage to wait for 
their persons being seized, and that as soon as they saw 
their provisions sold, their purses empty, their handsome 
furniture broken to pieces, their houses ruined and 
demolished, they surrendered. You know that many 
had the cowardice even to anticipate all these hard 
dealings, by revolting from the truth the moment they 
were threatened. What judgment, according to your 
view, would you have us pass on these ? Shall we say 
that they have changed, only because overcome by a 
force which they found it impossible to resist ? Shall 
we not rather say, that such are carnal, like the wretched 
Gadarenes, who preferred their swine to Jesus Christ, 
who besought him to depart out of their coasts as 
soon as they thought his presence would expose 
them to certain risks, or prejudice their temporal inte- 
rests ; and who made more account of their perishable 
and transitory possessions, than of the inestimable loss 
of his gospel ? 

It is true, that such as stood firm until their persons 



280 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

were attacked, and those, especially, who succumbed 
only after being subjected for a time to the outrages and 
the cruelty of the soldiers to whom thev were given up, 
have sinned in a less heinous manner. And yet they 
have grievously sinned ; they have begun in the Spirit, 
but have ended in the flesh. Whatever they may have 
suffered, they are not entitled, more than the former, 
to excuse themselves on the ground of the aggravation 
of their sufferings, and to pretend that they were 
beyond endurance. The apostle assures us of the con- 
trary ; he writes that the trials of believers were such 
as were common to men, and that God is faithful, who 
will not suffer them to be tempted beyond what they 
can bear, but with the temptation, will give them a way 
of escape. In fact, by his grace some there have been 
among them, whom all these evils have not once been 
able to subdue or shake ; and who by their firmness and 
heroic constancy, have maintained the glory of the 
gospel, shamefully betrayed, as it has been, by the weak- 
ness of these fearful persons. 

And in this betrayal we have beheld the mystical 
crucifixion of Jesus Christ, who is pierced afresh and 
put to open shame, and made to die in his members,, as 
he once was crucified in his own sacred person. To the 
shame of our sex, men have been seen to forsake him 
and even ministers to deny him; while women have 
confessed and followed him with undaunted courage. 

Let us not say, then, that they have fallen only be- 
cause it was not possible for them to sustain shocks so 
rude, for assuredly they would have come out from them 
conquerors, and more than conquerors, had they been 
provided with all the divine arms which the gospel sup- 
plies. By finding themselves exposed to the insolence 
and cruelty of the soldiers, ought they not to have 



CONFORMITY TO CHRIST IN SUFFERING. 281 

called to mind that the Lord Jesus Christ had been 
treated in like manner before them ? And, ravished 
with this glorious conformity, ought they not to have 
said in the secret of their hearts, in a transport of joy, 
1 thus it was that my adorable Saviour was mocked, and 
beaten, and scourged, by like instruments of envy and 
of rage, the predecessors of the scribes and the phari- 
sees of this day. Ah, as for me, never may I come to 
be ashamed of punishment which are his punishments. 
Never be it mine to glory, save in the cross of my 
Saviour, by which the world is crucified to me, and I 
unto the world/ Ought they not, then, to be drawing 
parallels between what they suffer and what they de- 
serve, and what their benign Saviour suffered in their 
stead ? And ought they not to exclaim, * I might have 
been cast for ever into the burning lake of fire and 
brimstone, as a punishment for my crimes, and shall I 
account it strange to find myself exposed, for some 
moments, to this furnace which is for the trial of my 
faith ? I deserved being the object of the severest ven- 
geance of God's justice, and shall I not receive, with 
respect, some slight chastisements from his loving and 
paternal hand ? My Saviour drank to the very dregs 
for me, the bitter cup which I ought to have swallowed 
entire, and shall I refuse so much as to touch it with my 
lips, when it is his wish that I should have the honour 
of being entirely conformed to him ? For my salvation 
he exposed himself to an ignominious and cursed death, 
and shall I be the person to refuse to suffer something 
for his glory? ' In the career in which they found them- 
selves, ought they not to have looked round on all 
sides, on that great cloud of witnesses of their strug- 
gles, with which they might have seen themselves sur- 
rounded, and who having gloriously passed through the 



282 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

furnace before them, and come forth conquerors, should 
have animated and encouraged them to imitate their 
example ? And ought they not chiefly to look unto 
Jesus, the author and the finisher of their faith, who 
standing up, and shewing them the glorious and ines- 
timable prize to which they ought to aspire, says to each 
of them, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give 
thee the crown of life." The heavenly brightness of 
that inaccessible crown of glory, ought surely to make 
them despise and trample underfoot all the thorns 
which must be passed through, in order to their pos- 
sessing it. And, knowing its preciousness, ought they 
not to exclaim with the apostle, ' I reckon not that the 
sufferings of this present time are to be compared to the 
glory that shall be revealed in us, for our light afflic- 
tion which is but for a moment, shall bring forth a far 
more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory ? ' What 
they had already suffered, ought surely to have engaged 
them the more, to suffer with constancy to the end. Do 
they not know that Jesus Christ tells us that we must 
persevere unto the end, if we would be saved ; that he 
promises all things to them that overcome, but that he 
promises nothing except to them, and that he protests 
that the part of the fearful shall be in the lake that 
burneth with fire and brimstone. Do they not hear the 
apostles calling unto them ; ' have ye suffered so many 
things in vain ? ' * Take heed therefore to yourselves, lest 
we should lose what we have attained, but let us 
receive a full reward/ In fine, ought not the very 
nature of their sufferings to inspire them with an invin- 
cible horror for a religion which employs, in order to 
its establishment, such means as nature abhors, such as 
lead men into Atheism, and which bear the infernal 
character of the enemy of mankind visibly stamped on 



GUILT OF REJECTING WARNINGS. 283 

them, even of him who was a liar and a murderer from 
the beginning, the red dragon, the spirit of impurity 
and abomination ? 

Object not to me, Sir, the inconceivable rapidity of 
the deluge by which they have been hurried along, nor 
tell me that they were taken by surprise, and when 
they had no time either to escape from it, or to prepare 
to meet it. You know that although it fell upon us like 
a thunderbolt, with incredible impetuosity and violence, 
yet that we ought to have been expecting it long 
before. How many years ago is it, since we saw the 
sky beginning to lower, and to be obscured with threat- 
ening clouds ? What a long time it is since first we 
heard the mutterings of the distant thunder all around, 
and the lightning fall in various places, and all things, in 
fine, presaging the most horrible tempest that the bark of 
Jesus Christ was ever exposed to. What a number of 
years it is since a host of orders in council, and declara- 
tions have been obtained against us, by which we were 
overwhelmed and reduced every where to a condition in 
which there was no longer any security for our goods, 
for our honour, or for our lives ? A condition in which, 
after having despoiled us of our offices, and excluded us 
from all public employments, we have found ourselves 
exposed as a prey to the avarice and the fury of our 
enemies ; in which the ministry of our pastors, and the 
preservation of our public religious services were made 
dependent on things not only casual, but such as no 
prudence of man could either anticipate or hinder. 
How long is it since the Intendants of Poitou and 
Rochelle made an experiment on such of our brethren 
as were within their jurisdiction, of the very measures 
now employed for our conversion ? And did not all 
this proclaim aloud that the resolution had been taken, 



284 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

that we were to be destroyed, cost what it might, and 
that in endeavouring to accomplish that end, no scruple 
would be felt at the employment of any means, however 
barbarous ? But, besides that all these things most 
clearly indicated as much, how many faithful and vigi- 
lant watchmen have we had, who both foresaw these 
evils while yet at a distance, and warned us of their 
approach ? How many prophets have we had who 
foretold them, and endeavoured, as it were, to make us 
put forth our finger and touch them : How many 
angels were sent unto us, as unto Lot, who called unto 
us without ceasing; — "Escape for thy life, look not 
behind thee." Their exhortations were laughed at as 
Lot's sons-in-law laughed at those of the angels. They 
were accounted timid persons and visionaries. It was 
impatiently said of them. f Tell us not things of evil 
augury, but speak to us pleasant things.' And when 
the deprivation of the spiritual pasture of the word of 
God which was daily more and more curtailed, ought of 
itself to have led them to forsake all without hesitation, 
and to go in search of it in places where they were sure 
of finding it in abundance: neither all the miseries to 
which they were reduced, nor all the predictions of evils 
much more terrible, which they were told were sus- 
pended over their heads, nor all the exhortations made 
to them to escape at least from the last stroke that was 
to effect their ruin, could prevail on them to avoid it. 
They planted, they built, they sold and they bought, they 
were married and given in marriage, until they found 
themselves overtaken by the fearful deluge that has now 
engulphed them. 

' But whither can they go ? ' say you, f all the ports of 
the kingdom being closed. 5 They were not so, even at 
the time when a commencement had been made of the 



FALSE REPORTS OF PROTESTANT COUNTRIES. 285 

system of keeping no measures with us. Many good 
souls availed themselves of that precious liberty and 
retired into England, Holland, Germany, and elsewhere, 
there to live and serve God in peace and safety ; and 
had we followed their example, we should not at this day 
have been buried amid the ruins that overwhelm us. It 
is not very long since the door remained half open, and 
but for our weakness and fearfulness, they could not 
have shut it against us, any more than against the angel 
of the Church of Philadelphia. But no one would enter 
by the strait gate, or commit themselves to a way, 
narrow and perilous, because a proper estimate was not 
entertained of the deliverance to which it would have 
conducted us. The manna of the wilderness was too 
light food to be preferred to the onions, and the garlic, 
and the flesh pots of Egypt. Nobody could carry away 
with him his fair mansions, full of all manner of conve- 
niencies and comforts, his delicious gardens, his plea- 
sant woods and walks, his rich farms, his extensive 
vineyards ; in one word, his beloved heritages and dear 
revenues ; and there was no appearance of abandoning 
all this, to pass into a foreign country, and assume the 
sorrowful guise of a person, without money or credit, 
exposed to the rebuffs and contempt of the world, 
whatever Jesus Christ may promise to those who shall 
forsake all from love to him. 

I am well aware that the reports brought by various 
persons, from foreign countries, of their harshness towards 
us, has repelled very many, who, in other respects, have 
not been wanting in godliness, and who hence have 
determined that it is better to suffer at home whatever 
may happen, than go and expose themselves and their 
poor families elsewhere, to perish with hunger, thirst, 
and nakedness. But it is certain, also, that their want 



286 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

of faith is inexcusable, and that little as they may have 
reflected on it, they might have known that the authors 
of these reports were cowardly and faithless persons, 
like the spies sent by Moses into the land of Canaan, 
who endeavoured to decry that good country to the 
utmost, for the purpose of inducing the Israelites to 
renounce it, and return into Egypt. For, in fine, which 
of us had not already learned from a great many indu- 
bitable accounts, how much England, Holland, and all 
the other Protestant states, were touched with our 
calamities ; how eagerly thev endeavoured to find out 
means of consolation ; with what promptitude they 
made no inconsiderable collections for those who had 
withdrawn themselves among them and needed succour ; 
how kindlv we were received among them, and with 
what tenderness they sought to alleviate our griefs. 
But granting that all that was proclaimed of the harsh- 
ness of our brethren were true, and that they were 
really as insensible to our miseries, as they would have 
us believe, was that any sufficient reason to prevent us 
from seeking shelter among them from the frightful 
storms that menaced us, and which have since caused so 
many to make deplorable shipwreck ? Was it not 
enough for us, that they allowed us to enter their ports, 
that they consented to our retiring among them as into 
an asylum, and that they permitted us to worship God 
with them in public, in purity, and at the same time, in 
security ; even although we had all been reduced, like 
St. Paul, to the necessity of labouring with our own 
hands, and to gain our bread by the sweat of our brow : 
even although we might have had no hope of existing 
but by a miracle, and that the ravens must have nou- 
rished us as they did Elijah, being assured, as we ought 
to have been, that he who hath promised to give all to 



CONTRAST WITH THE CASE OF ST. PETER. 287 

those who shall forsake all for him, would faithfully 
perform his promise. 

It remains, then, that people have chosen to hazard 
their salvation rather than their subsistence. Although 
the violence of our enemies, and the prodigious success 
they have had in all that they have undertaken against 
us, ought to have made us fear the worst as regards our 
weakness, we have braved everything like St. Peter, and 
like him too we have had the cowardice to prove false to 
our professions. Well were it for us, if in our calamity, 
our fall have not been more heinous than his. But, 
alas, how many advantages over him, considering the 
condition in which he then stood, did not such of our 
brethren have, when, like him, they denied their good 
master : advantages obliging them to greater fidelity 
and constancy, and aggravating their crime and their 
condemnation ? St. Peter saw his Lord in the hands of 
the unjust, who were about to make him die shamefully 
on the cross ; and, little instructed as he was in the 
mystery of our redemption, he was not even very sure 
whether this Jesus whom he saw reduced to so deplo- 
rable a condition, and whom he had seen shortly before 
in such an agony that he had need of an angel to fortify 
and comfort him, would raise himself from his tomb 
according to his promise. But they knew that this 
Jesus who was delivered for our offences, and raised 
again for our justification, was seated at his Father's 
right hand, where he governs the world, and from 
whence he shall return at the great and final day, to 
render unto every one according to his works ; and if 
amid their sufferings they had raised their eyes to him, 
they would, like Stephen, have seen the heavens open ; 
they would have seen him there in his glorious state, 
and that blessed vision would have made them intrepid 



288 LETTER TO A FRIEND, &C. 

and immoveable. I do not, however, pretend to sav, 
that however great their crime may have been, it is 
altogether beyond repentance. I hope that God will 
pardon some, but I should require more paper and 
longer time than I can now command, to explain my 
views on so important a point. This, if you desire it, 
will form the subject of another letter. 

I am, Sir, 

Your's, &c. 

November 8th, 1685. 



IX. 

LETTER TO OUR BRETHREN 

WHO GROAN UNDER THE BONDAGE OF BABYLON, 

TO WHOM WE WISH PEACZ AND MERCY FROM GOD. 



It is with deep affliction that we have heard, dear breth- 
ren in our Lord, the great temptation to which you 
have been exposed, and the severe sufferings through 
which it has pleased God that you should pass. But 
still greater has been our affliction on hearing of the 
weakness which has made you yield to the temptation. 
We exhort you seriously to reflect what you will have 
to answer to him who commands you to confess him 
before men, if you would that he should confess and 
acknowledge you before God and the angels. How will 
you be able to stand before the judgment-seat of him 
who has commanded you to forsake goods, possessions, 
houses, wives, fathers and children, for his name, pro- 
mising to render unto you a hundred fold ? 

Can you say to him that you have resisted unto 
blood, striving against sin ? What have your sufferings 
been, compared with those of our Saviour Jesus Christ ? 
Did he recoil when he saw death before him, when he 
had to endure scourging, the crown of thorns, being 
spit upon, and being nailed to the cross ? What are 

o 



290 LETTER TO OUR BRETHREN, &C. 

your thoughts as you read that passage, " Blessed are 
they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake/ seeing 
you can have no part in that blessedness, having re- 
nounced righteousness in order to escape persecution ? 
What will you say to the holy Apostles who proclaimed 
to the world a gospel of tears, who died as martyrs by the 
hands of public executioners, and who prepared all their 
followers for persecution, by telling them that all who 
will live godly in Christ Jesus, must suffer persecution ? 

What say you to our Reformers, who spared neither 
watching, nor weariness, nor blood, in delivering us 
from idolatry and superstition ? What, to those blessed 
martyrs whose children ye are, and who for the very 
cause which ye have so lightly abandoned, endured fire, 
prison, the rack, and the crudest tortures ? For years 
they were buried in dungeons full of mud and dirt, toads 
and snakes ; drawn out of these, they were made to pass 
through fire ; they had their hands and feet scorched, 
and were pulled out half alive, for the purpose of pro- 
longing their torture. They sometimes lived until their 
very bowels protruded amid the flames. Yet amid 
these torments, far from renouncing God's truth, they 
blessed his name and sang his praise. 

What will you say to those great workmen, who 
by their labours constructed that grand work, the 
Reformation, which you have allowed to fall to nothing 
in a moment ? How shall you be able to bear the 
reproaches of your forefathers, who were despoiled of 
their goods, who were persecuted to the uttermost, and 
who nevertheless transmitted the pure gospel to their 
children ? In God's name, my dear brethren, contem- 
plate your fault in all its extent, and you will then cry 
out. with a holy compunction of heart, " Men and 
brethren, what shall we do ? " 



DANGER OF DESPAIR AND CUSTOM. 291 

Your conscience, doubtless, now calls on us from its 
chains to give you our advice, and we proceed to 
give it. 

First, beware of the dreadful peril in which you 
stand, — that of abandoning God with your heart, after 
having renounced him with your mouth. For it very 
often happens that God gives over to a reprobate mind, 
those who have had the baseness to be false to their 
conscience. Such an one who seemed once to have 
loved the truth, comes afterwards to hate it ; nay even 
to persecute it. This result may follow in two ways. 

The one is despair. When a man once despairs of 
God's mercy, he forthwith hates the truth and holds it 
in abhorrence. Fall not into such a state ; set your- 
selves to examine your fault, but not so as to despair 
of the mercy of God. Your sin is great, but the 
Saviour's mercy is infinite. He preserves his elect 
wherever they are to be found ; sometimes he saves in 
Babylon those who belong to Sion, provided they do their 
utmost to come out from her, and take no part in her sins 
and idolatries, so as to have no part in her plagues. 

Labour, then, to escape from this Sodom in which 
your salvation is so much in peril, and while waiting 
for an opportunity of doing so, take no part in her 
idolatries, as we are about to say to you. 

The other thing that may push you on to a point 
whence you may never return, namely, to the con- 
tempt of the truth, is custom. At first you mav find 
it hard to be present at a service so opposed to your 
own. The sight of the images before which you will 
see the besotted and the superstitious prostrate them- 
selves, will painfully affect you. You will ill endure 
the barbarous language in which you will hear litanies 
chaunted in honour of creatures, and to the dishonour 

o 2 



292 LETTER TO OUR BRETHREN, &C 

of the Creator. You will suffer still more when present 
at what is called the sacrifice of the Mass, where you 
will be made to worship bread. 

Yet it is to be feared that by little and little you may 
become accustomed to all this ; that at first you may 
say, ' As for me/ I have no faith in all this, and that 
suffices for me ; that thereafter you may find it not so 
much amiss, and look on acts of idolatry as simple 
superstitions which can do neither good nor evil. Now, 
such a course will infallibly conduct you to the contempt 
and hatred of the truth, and from that, no less infalli- 
bly, to hell. For it is that sin against the Holy Ghost 
which is not to be forgiven, either in this world or in 
that which is to come. 

The advice which we have to give you on this subject, 
is, that you maintain for the Papacy the just horror 
which it deserves. The method that has been employed 
to lead you back to it, ought to contribute much to 
vour doing so ; for the religion of the devil only, could 
employ such weapons for the building of his house. 
To drive people to mass by force of fire and sword, 
soldiers, pillage and torture, is characteristic of hell. 
By the devil only could such a course be inspired, and 
they who adopt it are evidently his thralls. 

The better to preserve this horror for popery, forget 
not to keep your eyes turned to these its ugly features, 
and view it not in the light of those softened traits, 
held out by certain doctors of falsehood in our day. 
Look at the temples full of images, and with people on 
their knees before them, in defiance of the prohibition of 
God when he said : — " Thou shalt not make unto thyself 
graven images," and " thou shalt not bow down to them." 
And flatter not yourselves because of your not being 
compelled to do so ; for the communion with which you 



EXHORTATION TO STEADFASTNESS. 2S3 

are associated does so, and you will have part in the 
sin of such idolatry, if you detest it not in your hearts, 
and express not that detestation. 

Set before your minds that idolatrous creature-wor- 
ship, in which there is rendered to the mother of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and to the saints, that honour which 
is due to God alone, and remember those terrible words, 
" As I live, saith the Lord, I will not give my glory to 
another." Remember, too, that idolaters rank first among 
those who shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. 

Consider the sacrifice which has been established in 
the Church of Rome, and in which you are made to 
worship bread. Give not in to that idle evasion w r hich 
is suggested to you ; nor say, ' we only worship Jesus 
Christ in heaven.' For the pagan idolaters might thus, 
too, have saved themselves when they bowed the knee 
to their idols, by saying that they lifted up their hearts 
to the true God. 

Never rest satisfied with the criminal denial of the 
cup, which is half of the Sacrament, given to us by 
Jesus Christ entire. Never allow yourselves to become 
familiarized with the barbarous language which removes 
religion from the people's ears, and leaves nothing but 
for the eyes. Hold in perpetual aversion that vain heap 
of ceremonies, Jewish and Pagan, which are so much 
opposed to the purity and the simplicity of Christianity. 

But know that it is not enough that with your hearts 
you hold all these things in detestation. You must 
not conceal your sentiments. You must be ready to 
condemn them openly, as well as everywhere, and at all 
times, to confess the truth. Thus say, without reserve, 
on every occasion that occurs, that you detest the wor- 
ship to which you are compelled to adhere. 

Never go to mass unless when dragged to it by force, 



294 LETTER TO OUR BRETHREN. &C. 

and when thus dragged to it, declare that you by no 
means adhere to it in your hearts ; and when retail 
by the same force that brought you there, let it be se< 
by your actions that you have neither faith nor respect 
for these false mysteries. 

Carefully preserve your books of piety, devotion, and 
and controversy, read them most attentively. Save them by 
secreting them from the search of your persecutors. Above 
all, keep your bibles as a most precious deposit, and nflei 
an}i:hing rather than that they should be taken from 
you. Read them, also, with much assiduity and devotion. 

As for your children, they will come and tear them 
from you in order to conduct them to the priest's cate- 
chising, and it is to be feared that this may be done 
with a violence which you may be found incapabk 
resisting, but when they return from that, fail not to 
undo all that the priests may have effected ; instruct 
them in the truth, and inspire them with a legitimate 
horror for the Roman Religion, by making them Care- 
fully read over such passages of Scripture as are op- 
posed to it. 

Forget not to obtain, and spare no expense in ob- 
taining, from foreign countries, books calculated to 
fortify and instruct you, and should the priests take 
from you those you have, get others at any cost. 

The country peasants and artisans in towns run the 
greatest risks in consequence of their ignorance. But 
the strong must in this respect labour for the weak, 
and you must all endeavour to instruct one another. 
This do when you meet in country houses, as you walk 
along the streets, as you meet in shops, in the absence 
of witnesses of the contrary religion. You ought, also, 
to furnish the poor with books of instruction, and un- 
remittingly to exhort them not to suffer themselves to be 



EXHORTATIONS TO MUTUAL LOVE AND PRAYER, &C. 295 

beaten down, never to give their hearts to idolatry, but, on 
the contrary, to detest it and combat it with their words. 

Carefully cultivating correspondences with one ano- 
ther, mutually acquaint yourself with each other, that 
is, all of you who love the truth, and mutually strengthen 
each other in the determination never to forsake it. If 
you can at any time secretly meet at night in places 
remote from your houses, do so for the purpose of there 
reading the word of God and such good books as may 
promote your instruction, but above all for prayer. 
Forms of prayer adapted to your circumstances may be 
sent you from foreign countries. Labour even to con- 
vert the papists by means of the very commerce and 
communion with them which are forced upon you. 
Who knows but that God has permitted all this in 
order that you may carry the light of the knowledge 
of Him into the midst of the papacy, for its destruction ? 
But take care of yourselves. For should you become 
dumb dogs and dissemblers, and make yourselves pa- 
pists, God will give you over to a reprobate mind. 
Cease not, therefore, to speak to the papists whom you 
will meet, and to converse with them on the subject of 
religion. In speaking of the violence that has been 
done to your consciences, set before them continually 
the deformity of their religion, the purity of your own. 
the vanities and impurities of their worship, their 
idolatry, then* foolish opinions, and labour, by all sorts 
of means, to enlighten them. 

But that all this may be efficacious, it is necessary 
that your lives be of the greatest regularity. It is very 
clear that your irregularities and disorders have drawn 
down upon your heads the heavy judgments of God. 
There was no kind of worldliness into which you did 
not run ; rich furniture, silver plate, splendid hangings. 



296 LETTER TO OUR BRETHREN, &C. 

festive meetings, great dinner parties, games and diver- 
sions, sumptuous clothing, gold ornaments, jewels, and 
gems, and pearls. 

Now, if you be wise, the first thing you will do is to 
give up all these things, to sell your rich hangings, your 
plate, and so forth ; to dress with the utmost simplicity, 
and to give up gold, and fine dresses, and festive meetings ; 
all our days ought to be days of fasting and of tears. 

Want of devotion is another source of your calamities. 
You have lightly esteemed God's holy word. Family 
prayer was conducted among you with much negligence 
and want of devoutness. Now that the wrath of God 
has come upon you, such exercises ought to be frequent, 
and long, and fervent. 

Your outward deportment should appear one of much 
mortification in the eyes of our adversaries ; and you 
ought to be recognised in public by your modesty, your 
humility, the simplicity of your dress, and above all, by 
your charitableness and by your integrity. 

Be very careful in seeing to the wants of your poor 
persecuted brethren, and contribute liberally towards the 
expenses of their escape out of France. Let all things 
among you be in common, and let no one say that any 
thing is his own, while his brother is in need of it. This 
is the spirit of Christianity, and if you bring back that 
spirit, God will restore to you the true Christianity 
which they have taken from you. 

Such conduct will draw upon you the admiration of 
your fellow- citizens, though the enemies of your re- 
ligion ; it will induce them to give you a favourable 
hearing, and dispose them either to become converts 
themselves, or to favour your escape. 

All these advices are given to you provisionally, only 
until it shall please God to open for you a way of 



THE REFORMED URGED TO LEAVE FRANCE. 297 

escape from the tyranny under which you are now 
groaning. And you must endeavour to avail yourself 
of that way as soon as you possibly can, for it is not 
to be supposed that you can long retain God's truth in 
the land of Mesech. Your godliness will gradually de- 
cline. Your children after you, never having seen the 
public profession of any but the Roman religion, will by 
little and little become accustomed to it, and lose any 
wish to come out of it. Thus spare neither pains nor 
expense in endeavouring to transport yourselves into 
some free country. And do not look behind you in 
order that you may carry with you what is in the house. 
He that looketh back is not fit for the kingdom of heaven ; 
even though you were to escape, utterly destitute of 
every thing, you would be but too happy in having 
your souls for a prey. The worst that could happen to 
you is to die of hunger. But has this kind of death any 
thing in it more terrible than others? Ought any kind 
of death to appear frightful when the question is, 
whether or not we shall save our souls and promote the 
glory of God ? 

But, moreover, we may be assured that this worse 
thing will never happen. To indulge such a thought is 
to distrust the grace of God. We see none, even in the 
hardest times, whom God has not so far favoured that 
they have every where found and received whatever 
was necessary. Thus the risk extends only to the 
renunciation of the vanities of this world, and to be 
reduced to gain their bread themselves, or to be indebted 
for it to the alms of others. The pride of the human 
heart revolts at the thought of this. But it is this pride 
which must be kept down ; this is the very monster 
which must be beaten to the ground. One must count 
it an honour to endure humiliation, shame, poverty, and 
o 5 



298 LETTER TO OUR BRETHREN, &C. 

nakedness for Jesus Christ. This life is but short, and 
it matters little how it is passed. We must think of 
eternity, and for eternity we must labour. Count it all 
joy, my brethren, when ye fall into divers temptations. 
And be persuaded that your only means of undoing the 
grievous fault you have committed in renouncing with 
your mouths the truth of our holy religion, is to sacrifice 
your property, your comfort, and your repose, and to 
expose yourselves to all manner of fatigues and all man- 
ner of sufferings. 

As for those of you who still hold out ; in the name 
of God, my beloved brethren, meditate on the great 
reward held out to perseverance and on the glory that 
awaits such as continue steadfast in the face of all 
obstacles. Look to Jesus, the author and the finisher 
of our faith, lifting up your hands that hang down, and 
your feeble knees. Remember that he endured the 
cross, despising the shame, and that he was exposed to 
the contradiction of sinners, that he might sit down at 
the right hand of God, his Father. Behold the great 
cloud of witnesses and run with constancy the race set 
before you. Look to all those martyrs who are now 
living gloriously in heaven and in the remembrance of 
men. Remember that God chastiseth those whom he 
loveth, accounting them his children ; and despise not the 
chastening of the Lord. Remember that He greatly 
honours you in calling you to suffer for his name. Bear 
with patience the spoiling of your goods, prisons, and 
afflictions, for God will abundantly reward your toils, 
and will give a glorious issue to your conflicts. The 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. 

If you love the brethren, you will endeavour to make this 
letter circulate every where. 



No. X. 

LETTER 

FROM A BANISHED PASTOR TO HIS 
RAVAGED FLOCK. 



TO MESSIEURS, THE FORMER ELDERS, DEACONS 
AND HEADS OF FAMILIES OF THE REFORMED 
CHURCH OF * * * 

My very dear Brethren, 

The expression of grief and consternation which I 
remarked among you, when, for the last time, I passed 
through you with the speed of lightning, was but too 
natural. It struck me at the time as presaging some- 
thing very bad, and the sequel has proved that the thick 
dark cloud in which all of us seemed then to be enve- 
loped, was but the harbinger and commencement of the 
furious storm which has since caused us so many agita- 
tions, overthrows, and shipwrecks. 

Small as was the leisure and liberty allowed me by 
the inexorable authorities in this sad last passage, I saw 
and heard things which, added to what I already knew 
from other sources, loudly proclaimed our approaching 
destruction. The ruins of our beloved Zion covering 
all the ways ; the triumphant airs of our enemies ; the 
expression you bore of overwhelming disaster ; those 
eyes brimful of tears and anxiety ; those signs of the 



300 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

tenderest affection by which we took leave when at a 
distance, and exchanged those farewells which we were 
not allowed to do by words and embraces ; the weeping, 
the lamentations, and the cries, which you could not 
confine to the beach, which smote upon my ears and 
heart when already far upon the waters that bore me 
away from you — from you whom I accounted part of my 
very self, and who will dwell in my fond remembrance 
as long as my life or my exile endures — dear brethren, 
all those tokens, those unwonted extremities of sorrow, 
might well have led us from that time to expect what 
has happened since. Your pastors, whom, by a refine- 
ment of cruelty, you have been suffered to see only in 
passing, and as you were about to be deprived of the 
sight of them forever, loudly proclaimed by their swift and 
silent passage — " Yet forty days and " not " Nineveh," 
but Jerusalem " shall be destroyed." And but that I was 
forbidden on that lamentable occasion to make you hear 
my voice, I would have endeavoured to surmount and 
interrupt your clamour, and say to you, in the lan- 
guage of our divine master — " Sons, daughters, of Jeru- 
salem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and 
for your children." 

No, my beloved friends, what I felt to be the most 
heart-rending sorrow of that scene, was not my removal 
from my native country, — a country which for many 
reasons is dear to me ; not my separation from a 
family, which loves me and is most dear to me ; and 
in particular, from the tenderest of mothers that ever 
was, whose soul you then saw pierced with a sword 
which may prove mortal to her ; nor the dangers and 
fatigues of a sea voyage, so new to an innocent infant 
which had hardly appeared in its native land when it was 
committed to the sea, with none to attend it but a father 



CAUSES OF SORROW. 301 

and a mother, both of whom were so overcome by their 
sorrowful emotions as hardly to be fit for such a duty. 
What still more than all overwhelmed me was the dread, 
I might almost say the actual view, of the calamities which 
were about to fall upon you. It was as Jesus drew near 
to Jerusalem that he lamented her approaching desola- 
tion, but it was as I withdrew from your walls, and as 
they faded out of my sight, that my grief was redoubled. 
I well perceived that the shepherds who have been 
banished from your pastures will be succeeded by 
wolves ; and I felt it to be a most killing necessity to be 
compelled to go to other lands, there to wait for the 
news of your disasters. 

Alas, that cruel expectation has been but too speedily 
and too amply fulfilled ! — although my voyage was far 
less painful than I had anticipated, fear and the sight of 
enemies scattered over the sea as well as the land, 
having led me to disembark on the first friendly shore. 
I wished to recover my breath a little, by putting foot 
on this happy country ; but its offered repose was first 
interrupted by the news of the fall of one of your pas- 
tors and my colleagues. Ah, had I not brought enough 
of bitterness along with me, that this should have been 
added ? Have your hearts, not been rent enough by 
having three of your guides torn from you ? Why was 
it that one should have remained to grieve and to scan- 
dalise you ? I know what grief and indignation this 
revolt has caused, happening so unexpectedly, and at so 
unfortunate a time : it took you by surprise, but did not 
shake you ; it afflicted you, but did not utterly dishearten 
you. It will ever be said to your praise, that notwith- 
standing the fall of that pillar in the house of God, the 
house itself failed not to remain for long after, erect 
and firm. 



302 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

You have, for the most part, expected, beheld, and 
received the enemy with a very good face. Here we 
may speak thus without a figure, since you have been 
called to make head against what really are armies ; 
since legions of soldiers have been given you as teachers ; 
these being employed to force a religion upon you, 
which you could not be persuaded to receive. And the 
shock of encountering these barbarous antagonists has 
been so much the more rude, in that the principles of 
your faith supply you with no arms wherewith to oppose 
them, but your patience and your steadfastness. Dis- 
ciples of a master who suffered himself to be taken and 
crucified by the Jews, when he might have employed a 
thousand legions of angels against them, you have never 
dreamed of defending yourselves but by endurance and 
perseverance. 

This you did bravely at first, and with the exception 
of some faithless cowards who, like Judas, went to find 
the priests and the scribes, the powers ecclesiastic and 
secular, many of you, like St. Peter, followed Jesus very 
far amid his persecutors and his pains ; like Jesus, 
many of you have have been dragged before the judg- 
ment-seats, and as he saw himself separated from his 
disciples, his dearest companions, you have seen taken 
from you, some of you your wives, others your children, 
almost all of you, those you most tenderly loved. His 
executioners took from him his coat, and as they could 
not divide it, they cast lots for it, and your executioners 
have despoiled you of your property, and have shared 
and wasted it before your eyes. You have taken joy- 
fully the spoiling of your goods, like the believers whom 
St. Paul congratulates on having done so. The blows, 
the spittings, the scoffs, that Jesus Christ endured, have 
not been spared you. Some of you, like Him, have 



REFINED CRUELTY OF THE PERSECUTION. 303 

been ridiculously travestied ; so that the cross, and the 
felon's death of that good Saviour alone were wanting 
to your being in all points conformed to Him ; and that 
entire conformity you would have readily accepted, had 
it been offered to you, and had your enemies carried to 
its utmost length, their own conformity with those who 
are their masters. Your temper of mind, your com- 
bats, your disinterestedness, your resistance, now known 
universally and which even distinguish you beyond the 
other victims of persecution in France, testify aloud that 
you would have cheerfully suffered for the gospel that 
death, which you loudly and courageously petitioned 
for. Lord, we are ready to die with thee ; thither we 
would more willingly follow thee than into these other 
intolerable sufferings ; death is better for us than life ; 
and if it be so, why do we longer live ? Is it not the 
fact, my dearest brethren, that such, for long, have been 
your expressions and your feelings ? 

But your enemies, as if they would exceed those of 
Jesus Christ in cruelty, aim at depriving you of your 
salvation, not of your lives ; and therefore do they re- 
fuse you that death which would give you a crown, and 
introduce you to eternal salvation. In their rage they 
count more on the prolongation and perpetual renewal 
of your torments. Slaying you would not give them a 
long enough enjoyment of your sufferings. ' Afflict 
them in their property, their families, and their persons, 
but touch not their lives/ — such is the commission they 
have received from their infernal master ; as if in cruel 
imitation of God, who on quite a different principle, 
gave him a like commission with regard to Job. 
' But take not away their life/ The terrible impreca- 
tion uttered by the prophet against the wicked, and the 
order which the wicked at this day receive against the 



304 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

faithful, for the purpose of extorting from them a re- 
nunciation (of their faith) more cruel and more fatal 
than death. 

Alas! there has at length been extorted from the 
greater part of you, that very renunciation which 
wounds your feelings, and afflicts us infinitely more than 
all other sufferings from which it delivers you, if, in- 
deed it do deliver you. For whether it be that your 
enraged enemies, like ferocious animals, cannot be in- 
duced to quit their hold, or that they whet their rage no 
less against the weak whom they have prostrated, than 
against the strong who resist them ; or whether it be 
that God, in his anger at the feebleness of your first 
efforts, would have you instantly to see on the very field 
of battle, that to turn your backs on the foe is always, 
and in every sense, the worst part to take, we under- 
stand, and indeed you yourselves have written to us, 
that your combats cease not with your defeat ; that you 
are incessantly engaged in new straggles, still ruder 
than the first ; that God is no more beheld advancing 
before you ; that you no longer feel his sustaining in- 
fluence as before. What distress, in fact, must it give 
to a husband to be compelled to join with persecutors 
in endeavouring to subdue the constancy of his wife and 
children ; if he fail in doing which, he must either see 
them tormented, or be again tormented himself; and is 
often made to suffer both inflictions. And these hard 
necessities imposed on you under the extremest penalties, 
to ratify by your conduct that to which you have put 
your hand ; regularly to attend the services of the new 
religion which you detest ; sedulously to see to the in- 
struction of your family in it — that is to say, to give 
them poison instead of the milk of knowledge which is 
without guile ; to participate in its mysteries, which to 



god's purposes in afflicting the fallen. 305 

you are frightful indeed ; in one word, to act uniformly 
against your conscience ; are not all these new shocks 
in which you will need all the strength and all the 
grace of God to whom, nevertheless, your conduct has 
been such that he may well be expected to refuse them ? 

Yet, dear brethren, let us contemplate this in a better 
light, if there be such. Take these continued and re- 
doubled sufferings for salutary looks, such as that w T hich 
the Lord cast on St. Peter, after he had denied him as 
you have done. In these his last looks, as in his first, 
there is something very harsh ; there is reproach, and 
indignation, and wrath : and yet there is much kindness 
mingled with all this, which if you rightly apprehend 
and improve, you will discover that they are also looks 
of compassion, and of mercy, and of love. It is that 
Jesus is not willing that you should perish ; profound 
repose following all your troubles, would lull you asleep, 
but new crosses will keep you on the alert, and make 
you to rise again. Thus it is that the Lord calls aloud 
to each of you ; ' Remember whence thou art fallen ; 
do thy first works ; profess thy first religion, and 
repent/ " Aw T ake thou that sleepest, and arise from 
the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." My beloved, 
if so be that at this day you still hear the voice of your 
good master thus addressing you, harden not you 
hearts. If he still looks upon you in his compassion, 
and in his mercies, suffer these to penetrate and subdue 
you ; and harsh as his look towards you may be in the 
condition into which you have brought yourselves, far 
from saying to him as he saith to his spouse, " Turn 
away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me ;" 
say rather with the penitent David, " Cast me not from 
thy sight/' 

* O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that 



306 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

you should not obey the truth ; you, before whose eyes 
Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified 
among you ? Are you so foolish ? having begun in the 
spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh ? Have ve 
suffered so many things in vain ? if it be yet in vain.' 
Is it not the case that you apply to yourselves this 
reproach addressed by St. Paul to the faithful of Galatia, 
and that in the state of prostration and confusion in 
which you find yourselves, you will without murmuring 
allow us to apply it to you. I will not, however, apply it 
to you in its utmost force, for I pity your condition as 
much as I blame it, and because, great as your fault 
may have been, it calls for compassion as well as anger. 
God forbid that I should treat you as the insensate per- 
sons the apostle rebukes among the Galatians. If, O 
dreadful times, O dire calamity ! if this expression can 
be properly applied to some of our brethren in France, 
it is less they who have to blush for it than their execu- 
tioners, who, we are told, have reduced them to this by 
torments, unintermitted and unexampled. Assuredly 
such insanity, contracted in the cause of truth, may well 
be called the foolishness of God, and may well be pre- 
ferred to the wisdom of men,— of those heartless and 
earthly-minded persons, all whose prudence and endea- 
vour have been bestowed on the saving of their fortunes 
at the expense of their salvation. 

I ask not who has bewitched you ? Not that your 
perversion is not a truly diabolical and infernal work ; 
but because we know both the agents and the means 
employed by the Devil to bring you into it. For who 
is not aware that the soldiers of Louis the Great have 
in many ways been the magicians who have bewitched 
you, and that their enchantments have been the horrible 
outrages they have inflicted on you ? Such were the 



PAST PRIVILEGES OF THE PROTESTANTS. 307 

enchanters and the sorcerers of Mahomet. And if it be 
true that our triumphant monarch has been lately told, 
most justly has it been told him, that when he shall so 
desire, he may, by the employment of like means, make 
his kingdom Turkish in less than three months. With 
so much reason does my Lord Maimbourg attribute 
omnipotence to him, and so much reason has he to 
accept the compliment. 

Well, my well-beloved, I cannot refrain from saying 
to you with all the grief, and somewhat of the resent- 
ment of St. Paul, what he adds in these words, " you, 
before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set 
forth, crucified among you." This good Saviour has in 
fact been manifested to you so near at hand, and with 
such evidence, as never the likest portrait better exhi- 
bited the object it was meant to represent, and so that 
the actual sight of him could hardly have made a deeper 
impression. That church at your doors, the fine con- 
gregation that met in it for worship, the sacred exer- 
cises that were conducted in it almost daily, the minis- 
ters whom you had among you in greater number than 
in any other part of the province, and one might almost 
say, of the kingdom ; in all this Jesus Christ has been 
evidently set forth before you,- and crucified among you, 
and the impression of it ought to remain with you your 
whole lives, notwithstanding the interdiction that has 
deprived you of all these things. How is it, then, that 
favoured as you have been with such abundant light, 
your fall has been so great ? How is it, in particular, 
that having begun in the Spirit, you finish in the flesh ? 

It was the Spirit that appeared in the resolvedness, 
the disinterestedness, the patience and the firmness that 
you first exhibited ; but it is the flesh that marks the 
feebleness and the discouragement which you have lat- 



308 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

terly exhibited. The two, the flesh and the Spirit, lust — 
struggle against each other, saith St. Paul. The Spirit 
prevailed as long as setting at nought the loss of your 
fortunes, your repose, nay, your very lives, you remained 
steadfast in your maintenance of the truth, but the flesh 
at length unhappily prevailed, and by this victory de- 
prives you of all the fruits, and all the honour of your 
first advantages. 

The Apostle is very express on this point. M Have 
you," he continues, " suffered so much in vain ? " 
What ! Can it have been to no purpose that, in the 
cause of the Gospel, you have had your goods pillaged, 
your persons attacked ; that you have received a thou- 
sand insults and outrages ! See to it, I conjure you, 
and beware lest all this which vou have so shamefully 
belied, does not injure instead of benefitting you. These 
are gifts, they are talents ; to you it has been given to 
suffer for Jesus Christ, to use the words of Scripture, 
and you have hid them in the earth, but they may right- 
fully be asked from you again. You would have had full 
enjoyment of your constancy, had you earned it farther. 
Your light affliction which was but for a moment, would 
have wrought out for you a far more exceeding weight 
of glory. This fair stream, after a due length of course, 
would have floated you onwards into an ocean of felici- 
ty. But, like Jordan, it prematurely stops, and behold 
it mingles and is lost in a gloomy and infected lake. 
Those dungeons and soldiers, say you, made you see 
and suffer a hell of demons, even in this life ; then 
ought they to have given you a greater dread than be- 
fore of that real hell, and those actual devils, which 
they but feebly pictured forth to you. Have you 
then suffered so much in vain ? if indeed it be in vain ? 
No, I cannot believe that such fair beginnings can 



god's merciful purposes. 309 

prove utterly useless. It is as impossible that the 
fathers of so many sufferings should perish, as it 
was for the son of the tears of St. Augustine's 
mother to perish. God, whose gifts and calling are 
without repentance, has not bestowed so many favours 
on you merely that he might then abandon you, nor has 
led you thus far, only to leave you there ; he who does 
not quench the burning flax, nor break the bruised reed, 
will not permit that the torch of your zeal, after being 
blown upon by the impetuous blast of temptation, 
should not be lighted again, or the staff of your faith 
which has been damaged by this rude tempest, to be 
broken outright. It is this hope, my brethren, 
which leads us ever to think favourably of you, and 
which ought to make you think so of yourselves, in 
vour present sad condition. Although God, who is at 
once the object and the great judge of your fault, is he 
whom you ought chiefly to look to, I doubt not that 
you reckon much, also, on the judgments that men, 
and particularly your brethren, pass upon your conduct : 
and that you fear much that from henceforth you may 
stand very low in their esteem. 

It is true, and mark this well, that we cannot ap- 
prove of what you have done ; but think not that in 
condemning your fault, we cherish your persons the 
less, and have even lost all the esteem we ever enter- 
tained for you. We know the greatness of your trials, 
and the weakness of human nature ; • we would not even 
dare to presume that we should have resisted as much 
as you have done, had we been exposed to the same 
trials ; trials which we have escaped only by the free 
favour of that God, who knew perhaps that we were 
weaker than you. Subject then, to the same tempta- 
tions, we commend all that you did well, while we 



310 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

lament the evil which you have been constrained to do. 
Standing as we do as yet, owing to the pure favour and 
tender compassion of the Saviour, we keep a watch 
over ourselves that we fall not, and pray for those who 
have fallen. 

Doubt not that in these prayers you largely share. 
All the churches, all men's private closets, resound with 
them, and in these lands of the Reformation and of 
liberty, never do we thank God that we have been 
brought into them without prayers, that he would ac- 
cord to you the same deliverance. And if ever we 
cease to lift up our hands for you, it is only that we 
may stretch them out in our impatience to welcome 
you, and in the hope that we shall not be long without 
confessing and praying together, with one voice, to our 
common Master. 

Let this hope console you, also, on your side. My 
beloved, you have become the justest subjects of 
affliction and dejection, and the more in that you have 
made yourselves so. Job, when overwhelmed in a mo- 
ment, with all the plagues of God, was happy com- 
pared with you. Would to God, that I had now to 
condole with you only on the damage done to your fields, 
the fall of your houses, your children snatched from you 
by a violent death, and your health destroyed by painful 
maladies ; for I should find balm in Gilead sufficient 
for all these evils. But the wound of the daughter of 
my people is such, that I tremble lest I should search 
in vain, in all Gilead, for balm wherewith to mollify it, 
That wound is to be found in remorse of conscience 
which we ought, or rather which we ought not, to ap- 
pease ; in scruples, in doubts, in feelings of alarm and 
distrust, in mental agitations, which we ought, or rather 
which we ought not, to soothe to rest ; in a word, it is 



CALLS TO REPENTANCE. 311 

the most violent and the most afflicting condition in the 
world from which we ought, and at the same time we 
ought not to deliver you. Although we were not informed 
of it by the letters and other intelligence we receive 
from you,I could sufficiently understand what you must 
have suffered after committing your fault. You, doubtless, 
are ever asking yourselves what have become of those 
promises of being faithful unto death which you made 
to God at your baptism, at the holy supper ; in his 
house, in your own houses ; in public and in private. 
You would hardly dare to reckon any more on those 
promises of the present life, and of the life to come, 
which steadfastness in the faith would have enabled you 
to appropriate. The very ways that lead to the ruins of 
your sanctuary ; how much more the sight itself of those 
ruins, reproach you with having broken your word 
which you have so often pledged to God, and profited 
little by his word, which He made you hear. Do you 
ever recal to your memory, or take into your mouths, 
any of those sacred melodies of Zion, without your 
heart saying to you, ' Wherefore dost thou take my 
name into thy mouth, seeing that thou hatest to be re- 
formed V The future presents a still more terrible aspect 
to you than the present. Guilty of both murder and 
adultery more enormous than those of David, being the 
murder of souls, and a spiritual adultery, you, doubt- 
less, daily contemplate both your crime and the punish- 
ment it deserves. 

Christians ! you move my pity, — thus disquieted, 
alarmed, and in trouble. But I should be horrified to 
find you otherwise. Take courage then, my brethren ! 
These convulsive movements indicate a crisis which 
may prove salutary to you. These bitter tears may be 
followed in your case, as in that of St. Peter, by the 



312 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

gentle showers of divine grace. Your repentance may 
work out your salvation, and be such as shall never 
need being repented of. Possess, then, your souls in 
patience, in so far as is possible in your present condi- 
tion ; and beseech God that the prevarication of your 
mouth and hand may, if possible, be forgiven ; beseech 
God to withdraw you from the gall of bitterness and 
the bonds of iniquity in which you are wretchedly in- 
volved. 

But say you, ' how shall we pray to the God whom 
we have so much sinned against ? With what face 
present ourselves before the divine majesty of Him, 
whom we have offended in the highest degree ? In 
what name shall we call upon him now ? Shall we dare 
to do so in the name of his Son, Jesus, whom we have 
renounced ? Prayer is a refuge in adversity, but only 
for the innocent when oppressed like David, not for the 
cowardly deserters we have been. Our prayers, after our 
renunciation, might they not prove but additional crimes ? 
Might they not stir up the wrath of the Almighty, as 
the Psalmist complains, and become sin to us, accord- 
ing to the prophet's denunciation of the wicked ? 

Nevertheless pray, my most dear brethren ; I beseech 
you, pray. Great as your sin has been, greater still is 
the divine mercy. None of God's children are such lost 
prodigals that the good heavenly Father receives them 
not into favour as soon as they return to him, and, 
casting themselves at his feet, acknowledge their sins, 
and implore that they may be forgiven. Poor stray 
sheep, or sheep rather which have been separated from 
the Lord's pasture by the alarm and the ravages caused 
there by wolves and other beasts of prey, to that good 
shepherd address the prayer of David—Alas, I have 
gone astray like a lost sheep ; seek thy servant ! And 



COUNSELS TO THE LAPSED. 313 

soon you will behold the good Shepherd coming after 
you, and having sought you in the woods and on the 
mountains, amid precipices and barren wastes, he will 
lay you on his shoulders, and carry you back into his 
sheep-fold, where you shall be guarded and fed as before- 
He is willing to do all this, even for one lost sheep. Of 
this he himself assures us in the Gospel, and behold but 
too many such ! 

But what is to be done, while waiting for Jesus Christ 
thus coming towards us, and for this return of ours to 
him ? Do you still urge this question ? God grant that 
you do so sincerely, and that you would punctually 
fulfil what I have to give you as my counsels in that 
respect. I have but three to offer you ; yet they are 
most important, and their rejection involves your being 
lost without resource. 

The first, on which the other two are founded, and 
without following which, it is not very necessary, nay it 
it needless for you to keep so much guard over your- 
selves, is that you think seriously, and take prompt 
measures either for confessing the Son of God at the 
very places, or before the very men, at which, and before 
whom, you renounced him, or for retiring altogether 
from places and from persons to you so fatal. 

St. Peter did not think it enough to weep bitterly over 
his offence ; he at length shed his blood in maintaining 
the doctrines of Him, of whom he once like you had said, 
" I know him not." It was not long after his fall that 
he was seen preaching the Gospel, imprisoned, and 
some years later, made a martyr. It is a bold and 
hazardous step, indeed, in the country where you are, 
and in the present temper of those with whom you have 
to do. But is it not still more perilous, nay, desperate, 
to wait in cowardly silence, and from a criminal pru- 

p 



314 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

dence, for that denial which will be made bv God, 
before his father and the angels, of those who instead 
of confessing, shall have denied him before men ? 

Well then, my brethren, if the fur}- of your enemies 
and your own timidity prevent you from openlv making 
the amende honorable to Jesus, and repairing vour fault 
on the very spot where you have been defeated, come 
at least and do it in places where you will be more at 
liberty and more safe in doing so. Resolve, in fine, to 
fly, — a measure which you ought to have made up your 
minds to long ago, and which, had it been accomplished 
ere now, would have saved you the desolation in which 
you are plunged. You have not paid due obedience to 
that saying of our Lord's — " He that will come after me 
let him take up his cross ; " obey, then, that saying of 
the same God, " when thev persecute you in one city, 
flee ye to another ;" — " Come out of Babylon, my peo- 
ple, lest ye be partakers of her plagues ; " and of these 
ye shall undoubtedly be partakers, if ye participate in 
her abominations. 

I will not now act the part of a prophet fulminating 
denunciations upon my country, that country which I 
shall always love, notwithstanding the evil treatment I 
have experienced from her ; but God grant that more 
favourable events may yet disappoint the fears of a ter- 
rible futurity, which I apprehend is fast coming upon 
her, and which she daily gives us more and more reason 
to apprehend. As for you. come you out of it ; since you 
can neither live there, nor die there, at once in peace, 
and so as not to peril your salvation. Repose and sal- 
vation elsewhere! — such is the motto which you ought 
from henceforth worthily to bear and to earn- into 
execution. 

Flight is difficult and dangerous, but is your remain- 



EXHORTATION TO LEAVE FRANCE. 315 

ing where you are less so ? What security, and what 
pleasure, can you find from henceforth, in the tents of 
Kedar and of Mesech, where you have already sojourned 
too long. Do, then, for your salvation, what you would 
do for your life. Risk encountering troops by sea and 
land unworthily employed in opposing your escape, like 
the Egyptians who went forth to prevent that of the 
Israelites. The cloud of the Lord's protecting power 
will conceal you, if it is his pleasure, from the pursuit of 
your indefatigable persecutors, and if at the worst he 
allows you to fall into their hands, still they will find 
you, not committing crimes, but, on the contrary, doing 
your duty, and obeying your master ; and the last 
punishment inflicted on you, besides being unjust, will 
in case of your being subjected to it, restore you to the 
order of God and of your vocation which require you to 
suffer all things for his name. Come out, come out of 
Egypt, Israel of God ! whom they will not only not suf- 
fer to go forth, in order that you may sacrifice elsewhere 
to your God, but would still farther compel to sacrifice 
to the gods of the country. Follow those who, like 
Moses, have gone out before you, and have alreadv 
passed through the Red sea. They have no longer the 
staff wherewith Moses smote the waves, to draw vo u 
forth with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. But 
what they can do for you, they will do. From the 
opposite shore which they have reached, they stretch 
forth their arms, ready to receive and conduct you, as 
they once did on the other side of the sea. Think 
seriously of this ; labour stoutly to accomplish it ; this 
is one point at which it is not with fear and trembling 
that you must work out your salvation. 

What you have next to observe is to avoid, to refuse, 
and to reject, every kind of acts of the religion to which 

p 2 



316 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

you have been compelled to subscribe. It is too much 
already that she has had your hand ; beware, then, of 
any farther prostitution. Frequenting her exercises, 
and participating in her mysteries, would nullify and 
throw ridicule on your protestations that you remain 
still attached in heart to the true religion. "Would not 
a rebellious subject be but mocking his prince, were he 
to assure him of his inviolable attachment, while he 
nevertheless remained ever with the army of the enemy, 
following all its movements, and helping forward all its- 
expeditions ? A debauched woman would only mock 
her husband, if at the very time that she persevered in 
her impurities, she should assure him of her return and 
her chastity. My Brethren, God will not be mocked. 
Shew, then, by something more effective than words, 
that you love his truth, that is to say, himself, who is 
the truth. And in the condition in which you are, you 
can hardly shew this better than by a religious absti- 
nence from the exercises and the mysteries of the Ro- 
man religion. . 

In these exercises I comprise her prayers, her sacri- 
fice, and her sermons. You cannot either with advan- 
tage to yourselves, or with a good conscience, partici- 
pate in her prayers ; — prayers which she offers up in an 
unknown tongue, and addresses, for the most part, to 
creatures. By being present at her sacrifice, you make 
void that of Jesus Christ, for reasons which you well 
know and which have again and again been urged upon 
vou. It is true that her sermons, with the exception of 
some affected quotations, are intelligible, often even in- 
structive and pathetic, especially since our preaching and 
doctrines have kept these gentlemen in breath. And I 
doubt not, that the better to win you over to the habit 
of following them during these first attendances, they 



PAPAL PREACHING TO BE AVOIDED. 317 

will keep out of the way those ranters and quacks of 
missionaries, and produce their very best preachers who 
will entertain you with a subtle theology and a refined 
morality, set forth in the choicest terms. But do not 
allow yourselves to be caught by these allurements. At 
present, it is for the mere purpose of temptation and 
seduction that clever reasonings have been introduced, 
and that scripture is employed, and even explained. 
Such preaching was attempted even in the earthly para- 
dise of Eden and in the wilderness of Judaea. The Holy 
Ghost would not have us give in to every thing that 
wears the appearance of an angel of light, and the 
sovereign pastor has foretold that sheep's clothing would 
one day conceal ravening wolves. Thus, then, let them 
be eloquent, pathetic, and learned as much as you please, 
they are not the less the preachers and the ministers of 
a religion to which you cannot, and must not adhere. 
There never ceases even to be concealed poison under 
these flowers, and in these brilliant vases. And is not 
this enough to withdraw you from them and to prevent 
your owning them or listening to their voice ? 

With respect to the mysteries of the Roman religion, 
you are too well acquainted with them that I should 
find it necessary to warn you to abstain from them. 
You know that they shock reason and scripture, and 
that they can be maintained only in a theology, as little 
deserving the name as is that of the doctors of that 
religion. You are not ignorant that to participate in 
them, is to make the most solemn and the most authen- 
tic profession of that religion that one can make. After 
this, receive them if you can— if you dare. An un- 
worthy participation in the true sacrament implies the 
eating and drinking of condemnation to him who is 
guilty of it ; how much more, then, will it be so with 



318 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, l\C. 

him who against his conscience, participates in I know 
not what ceremony, only that it is no legitimate sacra- 
ment ? Assuredly Rome ought not to be so prodigal 
of what she regards as the most sacred of all things, or 
to force hypocrites to communicate. A great saint of 
antiquity said that he would rather shed his own blood 
than give that of Jesus Christ to unworthy communi- 
cants. And the Roman church now compels false 
proselytes, under the severest penalties, to receive her 
sacraments ! But we are little concerned about what 
she does ; the grand question is what you ought to do, 
or rather what you ought not. on any account, to do, 
He that hath ears to hear let him hear : he that reads, 
let him understand. 

' What then/ will you say, f shall we remain without 
any religious exercises ; deprived as we are of those of 
the Reformed church, shall we abstain from those of 
the Roman ? J Engage in the former, to the utmost 
possible extent, among yourselves. Let your private 
houses be houses of prayer, instead of your churches 
which are overturned. There let the word of God and 
good books be regularly read. God in this respect 
commands what men forbid. Beware of accustoming 
yourselves to the want of this salutary nourishment. 
Instil a taste for it, with the utmost care, into your young 
children ; and do this the more assiduously, inasmuch as 
it is intended that no means shall be spared, in order to 
their being nourished with foreign and deadly aliments. 
Undo, in this respect, all that is done by your enemies, 
and repair what they undo. Give these tender saplings 
a contrary bent to what is elsewhere sought to be given 
them. Pour such a liquor into these new vessels, that 
they never shall lose the odour of it. Impress on these 
blank pages, characters which shall never be effaced ; 



ADDRESS TO SUFFERING CONFESSORS*. 319 

and it is not impossible that you may be saved your- 
selves while thus bringing your children to the Lord. 

I must now add a word, my brethren, for the confes- 
sors, whom by the grace of God you have still among 
you* And I urgently call on you to communicate it to 
them if you can. Since my voice cannot pass the gra- 
tings and bars, the cloisters and the prisons which con- 
fine you, ye precious remnants according to the election 
of grace, ye generous maintainers of the Lord's cause, 
when abandoned by all others ; ye stable pillars, stand- 
ing entire amid the ruins of the new Jerusalem, as was 
formerly the case at the destruction of the ancient ; 
may my congratulations and my expressions of homage 
reach you ! * For from henceforth, behold you command 
the respect and veneration of the universal church ; but 
what is more, behold, you are the objects of the love and 
delight of heaven, which rejoices over your constancy, 
and prepares those crowns which have been promised as 
its reward. Assist us, dearest brethren, in the prayers 
we offer up to God who loves and will hear you. Pray 
to him for the return and the pardon of your brethren 
who have fallen, as in former times, your forerunners in 
the noble cause of suffering which you run, prayed that 
the church would receive into favour those who were 
weak as they are. Pray to God, also, for us refugees, 
that he may accompany us in our exile, and make us 
experience in our retreats, those succours and that 
peace, which we here seek for. Pray for the re-estab- 
lishment of Sion now lying desolate and in ruins ; and 
on our side, we pray to God for you ; doubt it not, the 
whole church makes request for you, that you may have 
the victory and be delivered, even as it prayed for Peter, 

* For an affecting account of the sufferings and experience of one of 
these faithful witnesses, see " History of Martyrdom of de Marolles." 



320 LETTER FROM A BANISHED PASTOR, &C. 

when for the same cause he was in like condition with 
you. And may the good God, the Father of mercies, 
be at length prevailed upon by all our supplications, to 
be appeased with respect to all of us, assist us with his 
grace here below, and crown us with glory in his para- 
dise to which may we be conducted by the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. 
I am, with my whole heart, 

Gentlemen, my dearest brethren, 

Your most humble and most obedient 
Servant in Jesus Christ. 

At Haerlem, the 30th Nov. 1685. 



NOTES. 



A. p. 49. TURENNE. 

Descended both from William the Taciturn, and the Admiral de 
Coligny, Turenne might have been expected to combine the firmest 
religious principles with the greatest military talents. The latter he 
did possess in the highest degree, and in addition to the fame of a 
soldier, he was renowned for magnanimity and generosity ; for modesty, 
loyalty, and good faith. Beyond this, his character was rather that of 
a man of the world than a Christian ; and when we see him, from a 
principle apparently of blind fidelity to his king, carrying war and de- 
solation into innocent and helpless Protestant provinces — weakening 
the cause which, as a Protestant, he must have approved, and 
strengthening that which carried in its bosom all the woes about to be 
inflicted on his own Protestant fellow-countryman, we must be struck 
with the incomparable superiority of the first William of Orange and 
de Coligny, in reach of mind as well as in strength of principle. 
Turenne 1 s private life was not regulated by Christian morality. An 
attachment to the Duchess de Longueville, involved him in the sedition 
of the Fronde in 1650. As long as two pious sisters lived, he is said 
to have continued steadfast in the profession of Protestantism, but 
when they died, he gave another example of the fickleness of mind 
that almost invariably accompanies shallow religious principles, and an 
inconsistent religious profession. Turenne died about ten years before 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, having been killed by a cannon 
shot in an attack on Montecuculli, near Salsbac, on the 27th of July, 
1675.— Ed. 



B. p. 43. Mme. de Maintenon. 

1 Madame de Maintenon was born in the prison of Niort, on the 27th 
of November, 1635, nearly three years before the birth of Louis XIV. 
himself. Her father, Constant d' Aubigne, throughout was a man oi* 

P 5 



$22 nss 

a rash, wild, and dissolute character, and was at that time a prisoner. 
She was ba ptised by a Roman Catholic priest, and the Duke of Roche- 
foucank acted as godfather. Her father's sister, Mme. de Villette, took 
chaise of her early years, but while she was yet in infancy, her father 

she accompanied him, and she remained there till the end of 1639, at 

~-i.i;i rizir i-r i.:if:"ii 'S::-:?r.ii :i 11 er::r.fi tr.ziise ::" fi_':;ri.- 

. .itholicism. N ot choosing to fulfil that engagement however, he fled 

to Maraid<pe, accompanied by his wife and children, and in the voyage, 

the child was seized with fever, which reduced her to the gates of death. 

She was - for some lime supposed to be dead, and preparations 

were made for consigning the body to the ocean, when her mother 

ii:. :is: life —3,= 1:: ~r:ii;:, :-:.:. : •: :::.:::■ :: :fsi>:i:i:r ::. 

child. The presence of Mme. d'Aubigne, a woman calm, firm, and 

devoted, withheld her husband for a considerable time from the vice* 

and excesses of which he had been previously guilty. The property 

which he had in Martinique was sufficient for his subsistence, but 

Mme. d" Aabigne being forced to return to France for the recovery of 

some property, her husband once more sought the gaming-table, and 

:bing that he possessed. Mme. d'Aubigne bore all reverses 

: :::v.:.t. .-:_.'. a,= ;i: ':.:.: :. . ::-rn^e t: r.~f if: iirigi:f:. sie 

7 v :ed herself to cultivate her mind, and to implant those high prin- 

.■iilfs ii if: ijmh. — ii;i mifi: an if" agaiis: ::i::;.::::i :::- 

cumstances of danger and difficulty. In 16*43, Francoise d'Aubigne 

lost hei lather, if if can be called a loss, and shortly after returned 

J ranee, where absolute necessity of the most painful kind, obliged 

- : ii other to confide her to the care of her husband's sister, Mme. 

de Villette, who lost not a moment in converting her to the religion of 

her fathers : thus she became a Protestant. Mile. dlAubigmfs task now 

fjfiir :: ii£trf;:i:f fif alus which if: w 171:15 ni fiariarff fii: 

bestowed with a liberal hand upon the less fortunate persons of her 

neigbourhood, and for Mme. de Villette herself, notwithstanding one 

a.ci; :: nrfif::!^ faiariisi:. ::im:::fi '::~ '.is: isiv. she 

stained during life the greatest veneration. She was not suffered 

however to remain long with her Protestant relation. Her mother,, 

E:i 1:1 :ic 

salvation :■: if: :iii as ineies.s 11 117 ::if: ::ifi V: if: :~ : 

and as the svstem of conversion was at that time in high vogue es- 

iaHy with Anne of Austria, some of the Roman Catholic connev- 

g of the unfortunate girl were soon interested sufficiently in her 

f. 10 withdraw her from the happy home which she had found. 

7 he : I iwe agent in this business was the Countess de NemDant, who 

■-7:1:: ::" N::t:. a: :if hirth of 



NOTES. 323 

Mile. d'Aubigne', had become her godmother, and who consequently 
considered herself justly, in some degree, responsible fortherelig: - 
opinions of her god- daughter." — James Lift, ... 7 Times of Louis XIV. 



C. pp. 90 and 100— Colbert. 

■ The wide- spreading views of the minister went far beyond the 
mere collection of the revenue of the country, or the mereintrodi;: 
of economy into the expenditure of the state. He took a far wider, a 
far deeper, a far more philosophic view : a view which no minister 
understood in his day. and which no one has fully taken since. The 
prosperity of the government, he saw, must be founded upon the 
prosperity of the country ; and he knew that its prosperity was not 
alone to be procured by decreasing the burdens of the people 
diminishing the expenses of the state, or by preventing any thing like 
corruption and peculation in the various branches of administral 
Those were objects of importance indeed, viewed by themselves *. but 
they were as nothing when compared with the vast and weighty 
means of producing general prosperity by stimulating, leading, urging 
on the people to the exertion of every mental and corporeal power in 
every branch of art and industry. The view of Colbert embraced 
all : he looked upon the vast kingdom, with its population, its power, 
its energies, and its productions, as a farm under the superintendance 
of an active diligent steward : he felt himself bound to cultivate every 
inch of the soil, and not to neglect any one field because the earth 
thereof was worse than another ; if it would not grow corn, it would 
grow grass : and Colbert resolved that there should be no weeds where 
his eye fell. 

* With the arts and sciences in general, he might be said to be unac- 
quainted, so little was the personal knowledge he possessed thereof. 
but nevertheless he was fully convinced of their utility in a state, and 
prepared to cultivate them by every means in his power. Agriculture 
attracted his attention from the very first, and he exerted all his ener- 
gies for the purpose of promoting a branch of industry which is the 
foundation of all others. Neither were manufactures neglected, nor 
commerce forgotten, and we shall labour to trace succinctly his ani- 
ent efforts for leading on human exertion in these four different Darts. 
till the war between France and Spain, which commenced in 1667. 
deranged or interrupted many of his best schemes.' — James Lift and 
Times of Louis XIV. 



324 NOTES. 

D. p. 101.— Louvois. 

4 Francois le Tellier, Marquis of Louvois, was the son of the well- 
known Michael le Tellier, and by him had been early introduced into 
public affairs. In the first instance, he had every advantage which 
could aid him in rising except those which depended on himself. He 
was nearly of the same age as the king, had passed through the same 
scenes and dangers, and was brought into his society from his youth. 
His own faults and errors, however, had nearly ruined him in the 
outset : and the picture given of him in his early days, by one who 
knew him well, is certainly not very favourable. ' He was at first, 
says a contemporary. ' a bad personage, with a mind to all appearance 
heavy, flying from labour, loving his pleasure above everything, and, 
to say all in one word, debauched even to excess.' This displeased 
his father infinitely, who feared that all his hopes would be over- 
thrown thereby. He corrected him on that account often, menacing 
him even with very strange things. 

4 Louvois, however, after more than once finding that the king had 
discovered his excesses, began to take some pains to conceal them, and 
applied himself to business with greater diligence than he had shewn 
during his previous career. Le Tellier obtained for him without diffi- 
culty, the survivorship of his office of Secretary at War, and entrusted 
to him the active business of that office, and when in 1666, the father 
was promoted to the office of Chancellor, the son was received as one 
of the Secretaries of State. He now took a pleasure in the exercise 
of his functions, and, naturally of an ambitious and fiery disposition, 
he not only strove eagerly for the means of signalising himself, 
but looked round him with hatred and jealousy upon every one whose 
station or whose schemes stood in the way of his own advancement. 
The chief object of his hatred and of his jealousy was Colbert.' &c 
James'' Life and Times of Louis XIV. 



£5* The punishment of Amende honorable, omitted to be described in 
a foot note, consisted in the culprit being taken to church by the pub- 
lic executioner, naked to the shirt, with a halter about his neck, and 
carrying a lighted torch, and there to make a hmnble apology on his 
knees to God and the king. The punishment was inflicted on women 
as well as men. — Ed. 



APPENDIX. 



No. I. p. 37. 

ROYAL DECLARATION, FEB. 1, 1669. 

Regulating those matters ichich are to be kept and observed by those icho 
make profession of the Pretended Reformed Religion. 

Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre, to all to 
whom these presents shall come, greeting. By our letters patent in 
the form of Declaration of 2nd April, 1666, containing LIX Articles, 
we had regulated several things to be observed by all our subjects of 
the Pretended Reformed Religion, on which they having lately since 
made such remonstrances as they thought proper to be made to us, 
these we have caused to be examined in our council, in order that, 
after a thorough acquaintance with the subject, it might be suitably 
reviewed, so as the farther to oblige those of the said Pretended Re- 
formed Religion to concur in promoting the welfare of the state, and to 
maintain friendship, union, and concord between them and our catholic 
subjects. We give you, to wit, that for these and other causes us 
thereto moving, with advice of our council and of our own certain 
knowledge, fall power and authority royal : We have revoked, and do 
hereby revoke our said letters of Declaration of said 2nd April, 1666, 
together with the arrets on which it proceeded, in so far as they shall 
not be found to accord with these -presents ; and to this end we have 
said, declared, and ordained, as we say, declare and ordain by these 
presents, signed by our hand what follows, which shall be law for 
the future : — 

I. The preachers of the said Pretended Reformed Religion shall 
preach in such places only as are set apart for that purpose, and not in 
public places and squares under any pretext whatsoever ; with the ex- 
ception of cases arising from public hostilities, contagion, conflagra- 
tion, water-floods, falling of buildings, or other legitimate causes, when 
they may make application to the Governor or Lieutenant- General of 
the Province for permission to do otherwise. 

II. That the public services of the said Pretended Reformed Re- 
ligion shall be conducted in such parts of our domains alone as were 



326 APPENDIX I. 

engaged previous to the Edict of Nantes, to those of the said religion, 
and which shall be found still in their possession, or in the possession 
of such of the said religion as have succeeded to them by a direct or 
collateral line. But it is forbidden to persons of the P. R. R. to 
establish any new service in domaines adjudged to them since the said 
Edict of Nantes, or which may hereafter be adjudged to them, al- 
though their adjudications convey to them the right of Haute-justice* 

III. That when noblemen of the said P. R. R. possessing the right 
of Jiaute justice, exercise that right, there shall be no sign of public 
worship. 

IV. In pursuance of the IVth article of the particular clauses of 
the Edict of Nantes, ministers of the Pretended Reformed Religion, 
shall be allowed to administer consolation in prisons in a whisper 
only and without scandal, whether in a common hall or separate apart- 
ment, with one or at most two persons present. 

V. That the said ministers, neither while preaching nor otherwise, 
shall make use of injurious and offensive terms against the Catholic 
Religion or the state ; but on the contrary, they shall comport them- 
selves with the moderation prescrib ed by the edicts, and speak of the 
Catholic Religion with all respect. 

VI. That notaries who shall receive the testaments or other acts of 
persons of the Pretended Reformed Religion, shall speak of the said 
religion only in the terms prescribed by the edicts. 

VII. That the said ministers shall not assume the style and title 
of pastors of the Church, but only that of ministers of the Pretended 
Reformed Religion. As, also, they shall not speak irreverently of 
the holy things and ceremonies of the Church, and give to Catholics 
no other name but that of Catholics. 

VIII. That the said ministers shall not wear robes or cassocks, nor 
appear in a gown except in the temples. 

IX. That the said ministers shall keep registers of the baptisms and 
marriages of the said P. R. R. and furnish extracts thereof every 
three months, to the clerks of the Bailiewicks and Seneschalships of 
their district. 

X. That they shall not celebrate any marriages between Catholics 
and persons of the P. R. R. when opposition is made, until the said 
opposition is voided by the judges having jurisdiction in the case. 

XI. Persons of the said Pretended Reformed Religion are autho- 
rised to summon their deacons to consistory meetings ; to summon 

* The jurisdictions of the French noblesse were divided into the 
Haute, Moyenne, and Basse, according to the offences they could try. 
and the awards they could impose. 



ROYAL DECLARATION, FEB. 1, 1669. 327 

such members also as they wish to correct ; to assemble heads of fami- 
lies, also, for the election of their ministers. And with respect to 
impositions, they shall make them in conformity with the import of 
the 43d article in the clauses of the Edict of Nantes. 

XII. That the elders of consistories shall not be instituted heirs or 
universal legatees as such, and with respect to donations and particu- 
lar legacies, the practice shall be regulated by the tenor of the 42d 
clause of the Edict of Nantes. 

XIII. That persons of the said Pretended Reformed Religion met 
in synod, national or provincial, shall not permit their ministers to 
preach or to reside by turns in different places, but on the contrary 
they shall enjoin them to reside and preach only in the place appointed 
by the said synod. 

XIV. As, also, persons of the Pretended Reformed Religion attend- 
ing synods, shall not insert in the minutes those places where the 
public service of the Pretended Reformed Religion has been inter- 
dicted, or those in which it takes place only in virtue of a nobleman's 
privilege and in his castle (chateau.) 

XV. The said persons of the Pretended Reformed Religion shall 
not correspond with other provinces, nor write to them on pretext of 
charity or otherwise, nor shall they receive appeals from other synods 
unless in the case of appeals to a national synod. 

XVI. We forbid Ministers, Elders, and others of the Pretended 
Reformed religion to hold Colloques, (Presbyterial Meetings,) unless 
during the sittings of synods convened with our permission, and in 
presence of the Commissary Depute, to hold any meetings in the inter- 
val between such synods, or in the same interval to receive any can- 
didates for the ministry, or to grant commissions, or to deliberate on 
any affairs by circular letters, or in any manner, or for any cause 
whatever, under penalty of being punished conformably to our 
edicts and ordinances. But if in the interval of the holding of synods, 
a minister of any place where the service of the Pretended Reformed 
Religion is legally established, within the bounds of the said synod 
happens to die, or if some vicious or scandalous persons cannot be 
brought back to their duty by the consistories, in these two cases 
alone shall the said persons of the Pretended Reformed Religion meet 
and hold a colloquy in the presence of a commissary on our part, in 
order to provide a minister in the room of the deceased, or to punish 
such vicious or scandalous persons as they shall have deserved. 

XVII. That the ministers, consistories, and synods of the said 
P. R. R. shall not take upon them to pronounce on the validity of 
marriages made and contracted by persons of the said P R R. 

XVIII. In like manner we prohibit consistories and synods from 



328 APPENDIX I. 

censuring, or in any other way punishing, Fathers, Mothers, and 
Guardians at law, who send their children, or wards, to the colleges 
or schools of Catholics, or who get them instructed by Catholic pre- 
ceptors, unless in case of clear proofs of an intention of forcing, or 
seducing, the children into a change of religion, in which case they 
may notify to the parents and guardians to send in their complaints to 
the magistrates. 

XIX. That at public rejoicings by our orders in the public squares, 
and at the execution of criminals of the said Pretended Reformed Reli- 
gion, neither the ministers nor others shall be allowed to sing Psalms. 

XX. That the dead bodies of persons of the said Pretended Re- 
formed Religion shall not be buried in Catholic binying grounds, nor 
in the churches under pretext that the tombs of their fathers are there, 
or that they possess rights thereto as lords of the manor, or patrons. 

XXI. That persons of the said religion shall not place the bodies of 
their dead in front of their houses, or make consolations or exhorta- 
tions in the streets on the occasion of their being buried. 

XXII. As for the burial of the dead of the said P. R. R. our will 
is, that the processions shall leave as follows, from the month of April 
to the end of September, at six o'clock, A. M. and at six o'clock P. M. 
precisely ; and from October to the end of March at eight o'clock, 
A. M. and at four o'clock, P. M. that they make no halt on their march, 
and have no more present than the law allows ; enjoining all our 
officers to see that no molestation, insult, or scandal be done to the 
said persons of the P. R. R. 

XXIII. That the burying grounds occupied by the said persons of 
the P. R. R. adjoining churches, shall be delivered up to the Catholics, 
all legal acts and bargains to the contrary notwithstanding, the said 
Catholics at their convenience giving them others as shall be arranged 
by the lords commissioners appointed to execute the Edict of Nantes ; 
and for the other burying grounds occupied by them and not adjoining 
churches, and where there is but one occupied in common with the 
Catholics, the said persons of the P. R. R. shall be obliged to quit 
them, the said Catholics giving them others at their convenience as 
shall also be arranged by the said lords commissioners. And in places 
where there are no burying grounds for persons of the said P. R. R. 
they may carry their dead to the burying grounds they may have in 
some adjacent parish, proceeding thither at the time and with the 
number of persons prescribed by the preceding clause. 

XXIV. As for suits at law, in cases falling under the jurisdiction 
of provosts, the 67th article of the Edict of Nantes shall be observed 
according to its form and tenor, and the usage adopted hitherto. 

XXV. That such counsellors as are of the said P. R. R. in Seneschal- 



ROYAL DECLARATION, FEB. 1, 1669. 329 

ships and others shall not preside in absence of the chiefs of their 
company, but only Catholics, and these shall speak to the exclusion of 
officers of the P. R. R. although these may be older men. 

XXVI. That suits of law in which the general interests of towns 
and communities are concerned, and in which the consuls appear in 
that quality, even although the consulate be mi-partie, shall not be 
taken before the Chambers of the Edict, in matters regarding accounts 
only, even although the greater number of those interested be of the 
said P. R. R. reserving to individuals of the said P. R. R. to enjoy 
the privilege of appeal to the said Chambers of the Edict, being what 
we desire them to retain in terms of the Edict. 

XXVII. That in terms of the Declaration of 1631, and the 27th 
article of the Edict of Nantes, in such towns and places of our pro- 
vinces of Languedoc and Guyenne as have mi-parties consulates and 
public councils, the first consul shall be chosen from among the Roman 
Catholic inhabitants best qualified, and who pay the largest land-tax, 
and persons of the said P. R. R. religion shall not be admitted to the 
first consulship, nor to become members of the States of Languedoc, 
but as respects the States called Assiettes, of the dioceses of the said 
province, the said persons of the P. R. R. may enter them as prior to 
1663. And for the rest of our kingdom, present usage to continue. 

XXVIII. That in all town and communal meetings, the Roman 
Catholic consuls and public councillors shall at least equal in point of 
number those of the said P. R. R. and into these councils the parish 
priest or vicar may enter as one of the public counsellors, and the first 
entitled to speak in default of other Roman Catholic inhabitants better 
qualified, and without prejudice to the rights of the priors of the places 
belonging to ecclesiastics having benefices in the said places. Reserv- 
ing to communities which may allege that the execution of this clause 
is impossible from the want of Roman Catholics, to arrange matters 
with the Governor or Lieutenant General of the Province. 

XXIX. That the offices of clerks to the consular houses or commu- 
nal secretaries, shall be held by (R) Catholics only provided the com- 
munity be reputed (R) Catholic, and with respect to clock-keepers, 
porters, and other unique municipal charges, the said persons of the 
P. R. R. may as well as others be admitted and elected to them. 

XXX. That at meetings of sworn masters of crafts (R.) Catholics 
shall at least equal in number those of the P. R. R. and these in pur- 
suance of the orders of our council of state of 28th June, 28tli Sept. 
and 10th November 1665, shall not be excluded from admission and 
reception to arts and manufactures, in the ordinary forms of appren- 
ticeships and master tradesmen, in places where there shall be sworn 
corporations, to which they shall be admitted as formerly without 



330 APPENDIX I. 

being bound to do any thing contrary to their said P. R. R. nor shall 
such as have been already received under the ordinary forms without 
letters of privilege, be molested under pretext of their said P. R. R. in 
our kingdom and territories within our -jurisdiction ; notwithstanding 
all statutes and orders passed since the 1st of Jan. 1660, with the 
reservation of what was ordained with respect to Languedoc, by order 
of our council of state of 24th of April 1667, which reduces to one third 
the number of the said persons of the P. R. R. for arts and manufac- 
tures, the which we desire to be observed in our said province. 

XXXI. That at processions at which the Holy Sacrament shall be 
carried, when they pass before the temples of the Pretended Reformed 
Religion, the singing of Psalms shall cease until the said processions 
shall have passed, of which they shall be informed beforehand. 

XXXII. That the said persons of the Pretended Reformed Reli- 
gion shall be bound to permit the display of hangings, by the autho- 
rity of the local officers, in front of their houses and other places 
appertaining to them, on those Feast days ordained for doing so, 
according to the third of the particular articles of the Edict of Nantes, 
and the said persons of the Pretended Reformed Religion, shall be 
bound to have the fronts of their houses cleaned. 

XXXIII. That when the said persons of the P. R. R. shall meet 
the Holy Sacrament in the streets, on its way to sick persons or other- 
wise, they shall be bound to retire at the sound of the bell which pre- 
cedes it, and if not, they shall shew signs of respect by doffing their 
hats, if men ; prohibiting them from appearing at their doors, shops, or 
windows, when the Holy Sacrament shall pass, unless they so con- 
duct themselves, and prohibiting all persons from presenting any 
obstacle to their retiring. 

XXXIV. The said people of the P. R. R. shall not raise any 
money, under pretence of collections from their members, except such 
as the Edicts authorize. 

XXXV. That the sums which they are authorised to levy shall be 
imposed in presence of a king's magistrate, agreeably to Art. 33, of 
the particulars of the Edict of Nantes, and the account shall be trans- 
mitted to us or to our Chancellor, and the collectors of the Taille are 
hereby prohibited from charging themselves directly or indirectly with 
the raising of the contributions imposed by the said P. R. R. for their 
own affairs, but these shall be collected by separate collectors. 

XXXVI. The said persons of the P. R. R. agreeably to the Second 
Article of the particulars of the Edict of Nantes, shall not be bound to 
contribute to the construction or reparation of churches, chapels, or 
parsonages, purchase of sacerdotal vestments, luminaries, casting bells, 
blessed bread, confraternity dues, rent of houses for priests and monks. 



ROYAL DECLARATION, FEB. I, 1669. 331 

and such like, unless in case of their being obliged thereto by founda- 
tions, donations, or other dispositions made by them and their authors 
and predecessors ; nevertheless, they shall be compelled to contribute 
and pay the dues ordinarily paid by the masters and companions in 
trades' corporations, and of -which the amount is to be distributed 
among the poor members of the said corporations and other necessary 
expences connected therewith. 

XXXVII. That debts contracted by the said persons of the P.R.R. 
shall be paid by themselves alone, and the liquidation of the sums due 
shall be made only in presence of the Commissioners deputed by us in 
the provinces, for the liquidation and verification of debts due by 
communities. 

XXXVIII. That ministers converted (to the R. C. faith,) shall be 
preserved in the exemption from payment of faille, and from giving 
quarters to the military, the same as before their conversion ; and the 
ministers now doing duty shall be maintained in the exemptions 
which have been accorded to them. 

XXXIX. That children whose fathers are R. C. and whose mo- 
thers are of the P. R. R. and those whose fathers have died or may 
yet die relapsed, shall be baptised and brought up in the R. C. Church, 
although their mothers may have been of the P. R. R. , as, also, the 
children of fathers who shall have died, or who in future may die in 
the profession of the said Catholic religion, shall be brought up in the 
said religion, to which effect they shall be committed to the charge of 
their mothers, guardians, or other R. C. relations on their requisition, 
with most express prohibition against taking such children to the 
churches or schools of the said persons of the P. R. R., or to bring 
them up in the same, albeit their mothers be of the P. R. R. As, 
also, prohibiting, in conformity with our order in council of 24th 
April, 1665, all persons from taking away children of the said P.R. R. 
or inducing them to make any declaration of change of religion before 
the age of fourteen complete, for males, and twelve complete, for 
females. And until they shall have attained the same age, we ordain 
that the said children born of a father of the said P. R. R. shall remain 
in the hands of the said P. R. R., and such as detain them shall be 
compelled to deliver them up by the ordinary and accustomed methods. 

XL. That the Ministers of the said religion shall not keep any 
boarders who are not of the said Pretended Reformed Religion, or 
more than two at a time. 

XLI. That parish priests, ecclesiastics, and monks, or nuns, shall 
not enter the houses of persons of the said Pretended Reformed Re- 
ligion, unless accompanied by a magistrate, recorder, or consul of the 
place, and when sent for by the sick, in which case no hindrance shall 
be put in their way. 



332 APPENDIX I. 

XLII. That the sick poor, both Roman Catholic and of the Pre- 
tended Reformed Religion, shall be received indifferently into the local 
hopitals, without being constrained by compulsion and violence, to 
change their religion, and the ministers and others of the Pretended 
Reformed Religion shall have power to visit and console the said poor 
persons of that religion ; provided they hold no meetings, or pray or 
exhort aloud, so as to be heard by other sick persons. 

XLII I. That infants who have been, or who yet may be exposed, 
shall be taken to the hospitals, there to be taken care of and brought 
up in the said (Roman) Catholic religion. 

XLIV. That alms at the disposition of chapters, priors, and parish 
priests, shall be distributed by themselves or by their order, in the 
places where the foundations lie, at the church doors, for the poor, 
alike of the Catholic as of the Pretended Reformed Religion. And as 
respects alms at the distribution of town clerks, or consuls, they shall 
be made at the entrance of the town hall, in presence of the priors or 
vicars of the districts, who shall have the controul of the funds. 

XLV. That hospitals and infirmaries founded by communities, shall 
be regulated by the local consuls. 

XLVT. That the said persons of the P. R. R. shall keep and ob- 
serve the holidays ordered by the church, and shall not on the days to 
be so observed, sell their wares or expose them for sale in open shops, 
and in like manner artisans shall not on the da} r s so to be kept, work 
outside the walls of closed houses at any trades which cause a noise 
to be heard outside by those who pass, or by the neighbours, accord- 
ing to the XXth Article of the Edict of Nantes ; to which effect the 
said holidays shall be proclaimed by the sound of bells, or by procla- 
mations made by the consuls or town clerks. 

XLVII. That the said persons of the P. R. R. shall not expose 
or sell meat on days on which the (R) church enjoins abstinence. 

XLVIII. That the temple bells of the said persons of the P. R. R. 
at the places where their exercise is permitted, shall cease to be tolled 
from ten o'clock in the morning of holy Thursday to holy Saturday 
at noon, as the R. C. do. 

XLIX. That in cities and other places where there is a citadel or 
garrison by our orders, the said persons of the P. R. R. shall not meet 
by sound of bell, nor shall they place any on their temples, 

Thus do we command, &c. 

No. II. p. 62. 

(From La Politique du Clerge de France, Amsterdam, 1682.) 
Some seven or eight years ago, certain persons of the Roman re- 
ligion desiring to recal to consideration an enterprise once attempted 



APPENDIX II. 333 

long before, to wit, the re-union of the two religions, they drew up the 
following articles, which being nothing but a lure to the Reformed, 
the latter immediately exposed the attempt by the publication of their 
remarks : — 

Project for re-uniting the hco Religions, the Catholic and the Protestant. 

A confession of faith to be drawn up in general terms so as to com. 
prise the avowed creed of both religions, without touching on the 
points on which they refuse to agree. 

Controverted doctrines not to be made matters of disputation ; 
preachers to be forbidden to preach either for or against them, and the 
reading of the schoolmen to be prohibited in the schools. 

A patriarch to be appointed who shall be dependant on the king 
alone, and who, like the bishops, shall be an unmarried person. 

The patriarch shall have power to grant dispensations in the cases of 
vows and degrees of consanguinity, and be head of the whole clergy. 

The bishops and arch-bishops shall be elected by the clergy of the 
diocese, who shall nominate three venerable and learned persons, of 
the age of thirty or upwards, of whom the king shall choose one. 

Thus there will not in future be any resignations of benefices, but 
they shall all be in the nomination of the king, except the parish 
priests, who shall be chosen by their parishioners, and the canons who 
shall be elected by their chapter, conjointly with the parish priests 
and church- wardens of the city where they are fixed, the Bishop or 
his vicar presiding, and the chapters shall be filled with persons of 
learning and probity, of the age of 30 at least, of whom some shall 
be preachers and professors in theology, and others shall visit the 
diocese and take inspection of the departments assigned to them ac- 
cording to the ancient constitution. 

In each archbishoprick there shall be established an University 
which shall be filled with the most" learned professors and may form 
part of the College of Canons, and be identified with it. 

A Seminary, too, shall be established in each bishoprick on the 
same footing, for the education of aspirants to the priestly office, 
unless it be found a preferable course to employ the Canons for this 
purpose, according to their institution as has been said above. 

The parish priests alone of the whole clergy shall be allowed to 
marry ; they shall not be received until they have undergone a severe 
examination as to their capacity, and they shall be held bound to 
give a sermon or exhortation to the people every Sunday, of half an 
hour's length at least. 

The (Protestant) ministers shall be provided with parochial charges 
in the places where they now reside, and in case of there being no 



334 APPENDIX II. 

vacant charges for them in those places, they shall divide the i . i 
chial duties with the parish priests, enjoying nevertheless the same 
stipend as before. Some of them shall be employed, also, in the 
universities or theological schools, according to their learning, and to 
meet the scruples of such as dislike hearing them, or of others who 
dislike the priests, an obligation will be laid on all to attend the 
parish service on Sundays, and to communicate at the annual feasts 
by the hands of the person who shall happen to be appointed to con- 
duct the service at the time. 

Half the monasteries shall be suppressed, and no one of either sex 
shall be admitted to make vows if under thirty years of i . 

The liturgy to be reformed aud put into the language which the 
people understand. — to the liturgy extraordinary prayers may 
added as occasions may suggest, and the parish priests and preachers 
shall also be allowed to use prayers of their own at the commencement 
and close of their exhortations. 

The Vespers service shall be composed of hymns and psak: 
French, and there shall be retained in the ancient Ian. 
part, very anciently in use. 

A good part, also, of the least necessary ceremonies shall be re- 
formed, such as the torches at interments, part of the canonisations- 
processions and pilgrimages, the posture of priests at the altar. 
every effort will be made to withdraw the minds of the people & : m 
the external shews to the internal substance of religion. 

The images to be removed from the churches ; the sacrament of the 
Supper to be dispensed in both kinds and to be received kneeling. 

People to confess before communicating, and to communicate on 
Sundays only. 

Every one to be obliged to communicate once a year in Lis parish 
church, under the penalty of excommunication for the first and second 
time, and of banishment for the third. 

Except at com m union, no one to be obliged to kneel in presence ■:: 
the host. 

Confession not to be so frequent, and none to receive confess::: 
but the parish priests and persons formerly preachers. 

Of the sacraments. Baptism and the Eucharist shall be the chief ; 
Confirmation as people choose, may be called one of the conseque:: : e s 
of Baptism, or an examination for the communion, and shall be ad- 
ministered by the parish priests or the canons : Extreme Unction shall 
be a sacrament : Orders and Marriage shall be the same to thos 
whom they are conferred : and Penance shall be a necessary work 
which bishops, parish priests and confessors shall impose on sinners 
according to the atrocitv of their crime, and when the scandal shall 



PLAN OF RE- UNION. 335 

have been public, the penance imposed shall be public also, but always 
so as to consist with moderation and propriety. 

Holidays shall be continued, but not as strictly as the Sabbath. 

Lent and the fasts to be observed ; nevertheless all the Sundays in 
Lent may be exempted from them, as well as all the Saturdays in the 
year, and some of the Vigils. 

The saints shall be venerated without being invoked, and all prayers 
shall have a reference to God alone. 

Pardons and indulgences to be reformed ; efforts to be made to give 
the utmost possible amount of instruction to the people, inculcating 
that remission of sins is to be referred to the blood of Christ alone. 

All this, together with whatever else may be agreed on, shall be 
approved by a general assembly to be convened, consisting of the 
most learned theologians of both religions, and at that assembly the 
Confession of faith above mentioned, shall be drawn up. 

But there lies the grand difficulty, for already the greater number 
of Catholics say, that it is giving up too much, while the Religionists 
say. that it is giving up too little, and these, too, are fearful of being 
deceived in the promises that may be made to them. 



No. III. p. 73. 

pelisson's letter. 

Versailles, June 12, 1677. 
Sir. 

In reply to the letter you have done me the honour to write on 
May 21st, besides what has been communicated to you through M. de 
la Tout Daliez, I transmit you a copy of a Memorandum already 
transmitted to several bishops of Languedoc, in answer to like in- 
quiries. You will perceive, Sir, in the first place, that I have pro- 
posed you as an example to all the rest as you deserve, and, in the 
second place, that without limiting you to any sum, you may with the 
same economy, and confining yourself to the conditions of the Memo- 
randum, give what gratuities you please, to new converts, both in 
Pragelas and other pans of your diocese. 

M. Daliez is commissioned to send you a credit for such small sums : 
which maybe augmented, should you so require : and for my own part, 
I shall heartily rejoice at being soon called upon to meet several of 
your letters of exchange, not for three or six thousand livres only, but 
even for ten or fifteen thousand — in short, for whatever you may re- 
quire. I shall only be too happy in having to complain of their being 
excessive. If you ask me, Sir, how I can reconcile this with the 



336 APPENDIX III. 

scantiness of our funds, and the design of carrying the system into all 
parts of the kingdom. I place at the head of my account, Him who 
made the -widow's oil and meal to increase, and who multiplied the 
five loaves. Next, that the conversions are not all to be effected in a 
day; that the funds increase with time, and that this success at 
length determines the king to devote the whole revenues of St. Ger- 
main and Cluny solely to such good works as these ; that credits may 
be found for moderate advances if necessary to be secured on those 
abbeys ; that if we saw so much success, and so much money fore- 
stalled, we might either stop or ask the King to grant other aids which 
his piety would find it difficult to withhold, without reckoning those 
which have been so far represented to him, and which he has not re- 
jected. Such, Sir, is the whole of my secret. 

As for what concerns M. de Gilliers, I cannot make out from your 
letter whether he is yet to be converted, or already a convert : in the 
former case I may undertake to propose to the King whatever you 
may suggest, on your giving me more precise information ; in the latter, 
that is, if he or his family have been for some time converted, you 
must get some one else to speak to the king, as I have bound myself 
solemnly, not to propose to him any expenses beyond those arising 
from conversions yet to be made. 

I admire, Sir, the work which God has effected for your General 
Hospital by your instrumentality, and that of M. Daliez. To my 
mind, it is like taking Valenciennes, Cambray, and St. Omer. I will 
do myself the honour of writing to you more particularly after I shall 
have had an opportunity of reading your letter to the little meeting 
which the Whitsunday holidays have dispersed, so that I have not yet 
seen the president, as he returns from Basville only to-morrow. Con- 
tinue, Sir, if you please, to honour me with some little of your favours ; 
and if you would do me much good, and give me very much pleasure 
you will grant me a small share likwise in your most secret prayers, 
whether in your cell or at the altar. 

I am. Sir, with all possible respect, 

Your most humble and most obedient, 

Pelisson Fontanikr. 



MEMORIAL. 

A great many conversions have been made in the rallies of Pragelas. 
by the endeavours of the Bishop of Grenoble, of a company of the 
Propaganda in that city, and some Missionaries of the Society of Jesus, 
so that without distributing more than about two thousand crowns in 



pelisson's memorial. 337 

ail, transmitted at different times, lists, well certified, have "been ob- 
tained of from seven to eight hundred persons who have re-entered the 
church. Some of the bishops having done me the honour to write that 
they, likewise, saw that many conversions might be made in their 
dioceses if funds could be transmitted. I replied, by the king's orders, 
that it was impossible to send money into so many different places ; 
but that each should labour on his own part, and give information of 
conversions to be made for considerable families, so that his majesty 
might consider and make provision for the same. That^ at the same 
time, no opportunities should be neglected for converting families 
belonging to the people, when it will not cost much, as it has been 
seen in the valleys that for two, three, four, or five pistoles, numerous 
families have been gained over. I remarked, likewise, that one might 
go as far as an hundred francs without my having any new order from 
his majesty for meeting the letters of exchange that might he drawn 
upon me. This has been done most religiously, in so far as respects 
those I have already written to. 

I have said the same thing to M. Potel, Secretaire de commandments 
to the Duke of Verneuil, before going to the meeting of the States of 
Languedoc, so that he might communicate it to the bishops who were 
to meet there ; and I have since confirmed the same by letters, and 
so much the more willingly, in that the king, encouraged by past suc- 
cess, has created a new fund, consisting of the third part of the econo- 
mats, expedited, or to be expedited, since the month of Deeember last, 
and which he destines to this sole object ; but this will not come into 
effect before the beginning of next year, though we may expect it 
will prove a perpetual source of revenue thereafter. Matters remain 
in the same condition, and albeit this fund is not yet realised, means 
may be found for meeting the letters drawn on me, for that effect. 
But the following conditions must be observed. 

1. That those who draw on me by letters of exchange be not per- 
sons unknown, or little known, and without character. 

2. That each be accompanied with an abjuration certified by the 
bishop of the diocese, the intendant, or some other public person, 
holding an office of some importance ; and by a discharge formally 
subscribed in favour of M. Soutain, his majesty's commissioner for the 
receipt of the temporalities of the Abbeys of Cluny and St. Germain 
des Prez, and of the third of the CEconomats destined for the new 
converts. 

3. That these abjurations date since the month of November last. 
1676. 

4. That although there be the power of going as far as an hundred 
francs, it does not hence follow that it is intended that one should 

Q 



338 APPENDIX IV. 

always do so ; it being necessary that the utmost economy possibl : 
observed : first, in order that this dew be spread over as many of these 
folks as possible, and still more because, if so mnch as one hundred 
francs be given to the least considerable persons without families fol- 
lowing them, such as are never so little above them, or who draw in 
their train many children, will demand much larger sums. 

The prelates or others who shall charitably take pan in these 
endeavours, cannot better pay their court to the king, to whose eye s 
all the lists of converts are submitted, than by imitating the example 
set in the diocese of Grenoble, where hardly ever has so much as one 
hundred francs been given, and in most instances very much less. 

Xo. IV. p. 76. 

For several severe laws obtained against the Protestants between the 
death of Mazarin and Colbert's Declaration, App. Xo. I. see the Rev. 
J. G. Lorimer's papers on the French Reformed, in the Scottish Mis- 
sionary Herald. One of these laws, for the repression of publications 
/our of Protestantism, and another for the suppression of all but 
primary Protestant schools, and limiting even these toparticularp-. 
seem not to have been repealed even under Colbert's administration. 

The decline of that statesman's influence is marked by the rapid 
succession of severe laws referred to by De Rulhiere. Of these we 
have room only for the following : 

Arret, July 31. 167?. Protestants not to meet for worship dm 
Archiepiscopal or Episcopal visitations under penalty of prosecution as 
disturbers of the public peace. 

Declaration. Oct. 10, 1679- Acts of Abjuration to be deposited with 
the King's procurators. &c. 

Declaration, Oct. 10. 1679. The Reformed forbidden to hold synods 
without the royal permission, and the presence of a royal commissioner. 

Arret, Xov. 6. 1679. Xobles having the haute justice must appoint 
R. C. officers only. 

Arret, Jan. 11, 1680. Protestant officers not to be appointed even 
by Protestant nobles. 

Declaration. Feb. 20, 1680. Protestants not to practise as midwives " 

Edict. June 25, 1680. R. C. not to leave their religion under pain 
of the amende honorable, banishment, and confiscation of goods. The 
Reformed not to receive abjurations under pain of having their wor- 
ship suppressed, and the minister deprived of his functions. 

This barbarous law is reported to have occasioned the deaths of 
several mothers and their infants, partly from alarm, partly because 
Roman Catholic sagesfemmes, in many cases were not to be had. 



arrets, &c. 1679—1683. 339 

Arret, Aug. 17, 1680. Receivers general not to compromise taxes 
with Protestants, nor to employ Protestant officers. 

Arret, Aug. 23, 1680. Protestant subaltern officers of justice to be 
dismissed. 

Arret, Nov. 18, 1680. Consistorial accounts to be audited at the 
sight of the Intendants. 

Arret, Nov. 18, 1680. Three years delay in paying their debts 
granted to abjuring Protestants. 

Declaration, Nov. 19, 1680. Magistrates to visit dying Protestants, 
to inquire in what religion they choose to die. 

Arret, Dec. 2, 1680. Protestant notaries, procurators, &c. to resign. 

Arret, March 11, 1681. Against a Protestant charged with blas- 
phemy against the holy sacrament, &c. 

Declaration, April 7, 1681. In default of resident magistrates, the 
syndics or church wardens to visit dying Protestants. 

Ordinance, April 11, 1681. New converts exempted from giving 
quarters to soldiers. 

Sentence, May 13, 1681. Protestant tradesmen to take no appren- 
tices. 

Sentence, June 3, 1681. Protestants forbidden to meet for psalmody 
any where but in the churches. 

Arret. June 16, 1681. Ministers and elders not to use threats in 
dissuading Protestants from abjuring. 

Declaration, June 17, 1681. Protestant children may become con- 
verts at seven j-ears old — no Protestant children to be educated 
abroad. 

Arret, June 28, 1681. Against Protestant notaries, &c. 

Arret, July 4, 1681. Against Protestant ministers who misinter- 
preted an edict issued on the occasion of some popular outrages against 
the Protestants. 

Arret, July 9, 1681. Suppressing the college of Sedan, and trans- 
ferring its buildings to the Jesuits. 

Sentence, Oct. 2, 1681. Reforming the public prayers of the Pro- 
testants. 
Arret, Nov. 24, 1681. Limiting the number of Protestant pastors. 

Declaration, Jan. 31, 1682. Illegitimate children of Protestant 
parents to be educated as Roman Catholics. 

Arret, March 31, 1682. R. C. horse-hirers, &c. to be preferred to 
Protestant. 

Arret, April 6, 1682. R. C. counsellors to take precedence of 
Protestant. 

Declaration, April 18, 1682. Protestant mariners and artisans not 
to settle abroad. 



340 APPENDIX V. 

Arret, July 13, 1682. Protestant ministers and proposans to with- 
draw from places where Protestant worship has been interdicted. 

Arret, July 13, 1682. Non-resident Protestant nobles to lose their 
right of having public worship in their fiefs. 

Declaration, July 14, 1682, Against emigration and the sale of 
their effects by Protestants. 

Declaration, Aug. 30, 1682. Protestants not to meet anywhere but 
at Church, and in presence of their ministers. 

Declaration, September 7, 1682. Concerning the disposition made 
by Protestants of their property. 

Arret, September 29, 1682. Certain Protestant law officers to resign. 

Arret, Jan. 5, 1683. Consistories not to raise money for any minis- 
ters but their own. 

Arret, Jan. 11, 1683. No Protestant schools permitted in inter- 
dicted places. 

Declaration, Jan. 15. 1683. Funds bequeathed to Protestant poor 
given to R. C. hospitals. 

Declaration, Jan. 25, 1683. Mahommedans and idolaters wishing 
to become Christians must be instructed in the R. C. religion. 

Edict, March , 1683. Amende honorable and banishment im- 
posed on ministers receiving abjurations. 

Arret, March , 1683. Commanding Protestant officers in the 
king's and other royal households to resign. 

Arret, May 17, 1683. Protestant ministers to leave places where 
worship is interdicted. 

&c. &c. &c. 

No. V. p. 116. 

The limits of this volume do not admit of the insertion of the Papal 
clergy's singular letter to the Reformed. It will appear more appro- 
priately in a future volume. Meanwhile it will be seen from the fra- 
ternal style of its address, and its assumption that the Reformed had 
failed to give reasons for their secession from having none to give, 
while, in truth, their reasons were so many, and so cogent, as to ne- 
cessitate their suppression by law, that dissimulation and cunning 
largely enter into it. The address runs thus : — c The archbishops, 
bishops, and whole Gallican clergy, met by Royal authority at Paris, 
to their brethren of the Calvinian secession desire correction, restora- 
tion, and concord.' Then, after much apparently affectionate remon- 
strance, the letter proceeds thus : — ' Wemake this express point of ex- 
postulation with you, and this we would unceasingly require of you, that 
you will say, Why you have made a schism ? While this remains unan- 



EDICT OF REVOCATION. 341 

swered, all other contentions, whether by speech or writing, are vain.' 
Claude, in his conference with Bossuet, had amply answered this, 
but it was found convenient to pretend that none was ever given. 



Xo. VI. p. 250. 

EDICT OF THE KING 

Prohibiting any farther public exercise of the Pretended Reformed 
Religion in his kingdom. Registered in the Chamber of the Vacations, 
Oct. 22, 1685. 

Louis, by the Grace of God King of France and Navarre ; to all 
present and to come greeting. King Heny the Great, our grand- 
father of glorious memory, being desirous that the peace which 
he had procured for his subjects after the grievous losses they had 
sustained in the course of domestic and foreign wars, should not 
be troubled on account of the P. R. R. as had happened in 
the reigns of the kings his predecessors, by his Edict granted at 
Xantes in the month of April 1598, regulated the procedure to be 
adopted with regard to those of the said religion and the places in 
which they might meet for public worship, established extraordinary 
judges to administer justice to them, and, in fine, even provided by 
particular articles, for whatever could be thought necessary for main- 
taining the tranquillity of his kingdom and for diminishing mutual 
aversion between the members of the two religions, so as to put him- 
self in a better condition to labour, as he had resolved to do, for the 
re-union to the Church of those who had so lightly withdrawn from 
it. And as the intention of the king, our grandfather, was frus- 
trated by his sudden death, and as even the execution of the said 
Edict was interrupted during the minority of the late king, our most 
honoured Lord and Father of glorious memory, by new enterprises 
on the part of the said persons of the P. R. R. who gave occa- 
sion to their being deprived of divers advantages accorded to them 
by the said Edict, Nevertheless the King, our said late Lord and 
Father, in the exercise of his usual clemency, granted them yet 
another Edict at Nismes in July 1629, by means of which tranquillity 
being established anew, the said late king, animated with the same 
spirit and the same zeal for religion as the King our said grandfather, 
had resolved to take advantage of this repose for attempting to put 
his said pious design into execution, but foreign wars having super- 
vened soon after, so that the kingdom being seldom tranquil, from 
1635 to the trace concluded in 1684, with the powers of Europe, 



342 . APPENDIX VI. 

nothing more could be done for the advantage of religion beyond 
diminishing the number of places for the public exercise of the P. R. K.. 
by interdicting such as were found established to the prejudice of. the 
dispositions made by the edicts, and by the suppression of the rni- 
partie chambers, these having been appointed provisionally only. 
God having at last permitted that our people should enjoy perfect re- 
pose, and that we, no longer occupied in protecting them from our 
enemies, should be able to profit by this truce, which we have our- 
selves facilitated, by applying our whole endeavours to the discovery 
of the means of accomplishing the designs of our said grandfather and 
father, adopted as these have been by ourselves since our succession 
to the crown. And now we see with the thankful acknowledgement 
we justly owe to God, that our endeavours have reached their pro- 
posed end, inasmuch as the better and the greater part of our subjects 
of the said P. R. R. have embraced the Catholic. And inasmuch as 
by this the execution of the Edict of Nantes and of all that has ever 
been ordained in favour of the said P. R. R. remains useless, we 
have determined that we can do nothing better in order wholly to 
obliterate the memory of the troubles, the confusion, and the evils 
which the progress of this false religion has caused in this kingdom, 
and which furnished occasion for the said Edict and to so many pre- 
vious and subsequent edicts and declarations, than entirely to revoke 
the said Edict of Xantes, with the particular articles accorded as a 
sequel to it, and all that has since been done in favour of the said 
Religion. 

I. We give you to wit that for these causes and others us thereto 
moving, and of our certain knowledge, full power, and royal autho- 
rity, we have by this present perpetual and irrevocable edict, sup- 
pressed and revoked, suppress and revoke, the Edict of our said 
grandfather, given at Xantes in April 1598, in its whole extent, to- 
gether with the particular articles agreed upon in the month of May fol- 
lowing, and the letters patent expedited upon the same : and the Edict 
given at Xismes in July 1629 ; we declare them null and void, to- 
gether with all concessions made by them as well as by other edicts, 
declarations, and arrets, in favour of the said persons of the P. R. R. 
of whatever nature they may be, the which shall remain in like 
manner as if they had never been granted, and in consequence we 
desire and it is our pleasure that all the temples of those of the said 
P. R. R. situate in our kingdom, countries, territories and lordships 
under our crown, shall be demolished without delay. 

II. We forbid our subjects of the P. R. R. to meet any more for 
the exercise of the said religion in any place or private house under 
any pretext whatever, even of exercices rids, or of bailliages, although 



EDICT OF REVOCATION. 343 

the said exercises may have been maintained hitherto in virtue of 
orders of our council. 

III. We likewise forbid all noblemen of what condition soever, to 
have the religious exercises in their houses and feudalities, the whole 
under penalty, to be exacted of all our said subjects who shall engage 
in the said exercise, of confiscation of body and goods. 

IV. We enjoin all ministers of the said P. R. R. who do not 
choose to become converts and to embrace the Catholic, Apostolic, 
and Roman religion, to leave our kingdom and the territories sub- 
ject to us within fifteen days from the publication of our present Edict, 
without leave to reside therein beyond that period, or during the said 
fifteen days, to engage in an}' preaching, exhortation, or any other 
function, on pain of being sent to the galleys. 

V. We desire that such of the said ministers as shall convert them- 
selves, continue to enjoy during their lives, and their widows after 
their decease, during their viduity, the same exemptions from taxes, 
and from giving quarters to soldiers, which they enjoyed during the 
exercise of their functions as ministers ; and, moreover, we shall cause 
to be paid to the said ministers a life annuity of one third greater 
amount than they had as ministers, half of which annuity shall be 
continued to their wives after their death, as long as they shall remain 
in viduity. 

VI. That if any of the said Ministers wish to become Advocates, 
or to take the degree of Doctor of Laws, it is our will and pleasure 
that they enjoy dispensation from three years of the studies prescribed 
by our declarations, and that after having undergone the ordinary 
examinations, and been found to have the requisite capacity, they be 
admitted as Doctors, on payment of the half only of the usual dues 
received on that occasion at each of the universities. 

VII. We forbid private schools for the instruction of children of the 
said P. R. R. and in general all things whatever which can be regarded 
as a concession of whatever kind in favour of the said religion. 

VIII. As for children who may be born of persons of the said P. 
R. R. we desire that from henceforth they be baptised by the parish 
priests. We enjoin parents to send them to the churches for that 
purpose, under penalty of five hundred livres of fine, to be increased 
as the case shall happen ; and thereafter the children shall be brought 
up in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Religion, which we ex- 
pressly enjoin the local magistrates to see being done. 

IX. And in the exercise of our clemency towards our subjects of 
the said P. R. R. who have emigrated from our kingdom, lands, and 
territories subject to us, previous to the publication of our present 
Edict, it is our will and pleasure that in case of their returning 



344 APPENDIX f 

within the period of four months from the day of 

cation, they may. and it shall be lawful for them to re-enter 

possession of their property, and to enjoy the same, as if Tryhad 

all along remained there : on the contrary, thai the pro] aty : those 

who during that space of four months shall not ha Ye returned into our 

kingdom, lands, and territories subject f : m 

shall hare abandoned, shall remain an 1 be : : nfi seated in consequence 

of our declaration of the "20th of August . si 

X. ~VTe repeat onr m : - a U all oar subjects 
the said P. R. R. against them > and children, leaving our 
said kingdom, lands, and territories subject to us, or transporting their 
goods and effects therefrom -under penalty, is . a sets the men, I 
being sent to the galleys, and jmen, of confiscation 
of body and goods. 

XI. It is onr will and inter:: :. thai the Declarations rendered 
against the relapsed, shall be executed according to their form and 
tenor. 

XII. As for the rest, liberty is granted to the said persons of the 
P. R, R. while waiting nntil it shall please God to enlighten them as 
well as others, to remain in the cities and places of out kingdom, 
lands, and territories subject to us. and there to continue their com- 
merce, and to enjoy their possessions, -ithout being subjected to 
molestation or hindrance, under pretext : : the said P. R. R. on con- 
dition, as said is, of not engaging in the exercise, or of meeting under 
pretext of prayers, or of the religif is sea dees of the said religion, of 
whatever nature these may be. nnder the penalties above mentioned 
of confiscation of body and goods : Thns do we give in charge to our 
trusty and well-beloved counsell re xiven a* 7 ntainebleau in 
the month of October, the year of grace one thousand six hundred 
and eighty-five, and of onr reign the forty-third. 

4 Signed Lons visa Le Telller,* and further down, * By the King, 
Colbert.' And sealed with the great seal, on green wax, with red 
and green strings. 

Registered, heard. &c at Paris, in the Chamber of Vacations, f e 
22d of October. II 5 



Erratum — p. 17". line 12, for commercial^ read commumal. 






THE CHRISTIAN'S FAMILY LIBRARY. 

EDITED BY THE REV. E. BICKERSTETH. 



Sust ^ufclfeW, 



ON BAPTISM.— A Treatise on Baptism, designed as a 
help to the due Improvement of that Holy Sacrament, 
as administered in the church of England. By the Rev. 
E. Bickersteth. One vol. price 5s. in cloth. 



^otume* ptcbumslj) JhrtrtufijeB. 

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LECH RICHMOND.— Thei .:_ . 

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